NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION POLICY

Mr. ALEXANDER. I would think Mr. Yates' comment is quite appropriate, Mr. Chairman. I would like to join with you in examining that possibility.

Mr. YATES. Go ahead and examine.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Chairman, as Mr. Koch will testify, I am a supporter of single-modal transportation as a cosponsor of his bicycle bill. I am also a supporter of his mass transportation bill. For sometime I have been urging the adoption of a balanced multimodal, national transportation policy which makes the most effective possible use of available transportation systems and technologies.

I have given a great deal of study to transportation needs, particularly to the manner in which Federal policies treat those needs as they relate to the countryside. I am very excited about your testimony yesterday, the answers that you gave and the statement that you wished to develop a national transportation policy. But I have become increasingly concerned about what clearly appears to be, in my view, an urban bias in the thinking of Washington transportation policymaking.

Surface transportation is of special importance to the countryside and will continue to be for a long time in the future. Adequate transportation is vital to the continued functioning of our national food, manufacturing, production, and distribution systems. There are many areas of the countryside which have developed needs for transportation facilities, both for people and for products, since the major portion of our highways, railways, and inland waterways were developed. In other words, in other areas of the countryside, transportation facilities, particularly highway and rail, have deteriorated seriously, either through deliberate neglect or failure to modernize.

REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PROBLEMS

Now I come to the questions. In 1973, Congress requested a study of a multistate highway corridor, actually a multimodal corridor, between Kansas City, Missouri, through Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

The proposed highway would do a number of important things. It would help eliminate some major serious gaps in our interstate national defense highway network. It would dramatically improve the potential for underdeveloped regions along the corridor to take advantage of their job and community development opportunities.

I would add by reference that 39 of the 71 counties along the corridor have per capita incomes of less than two-thirds of the national average. I noted yesterday you made the statement that it would be an unemployment disaster to allow Penn Central to go down the drain because unemployment would increase 50 percent. The reverse of that concept is that where unemployment is high but opportunities exist if transportation was made available, which the Secretary's policy would cover as a policy which would give a decrease in unemployment. This corridor would offer a natural opportunity for developing a modern intermodal, multimodal transportation system using existing railway, inland waterway, and air routes running across the corridor.

The Department of Transportation's December 1974 response to facts presented in the study on this corridor, and a number of others in other regions of the Nation studied at the same time, and all of these represented policies which preexisted your present policy.

The Department's response was that, "These routes did not appear unique in any national sense."

Mr. Secretary, I would like to know in your view and within the concept of the policies which you will develop while serving in this capacity, has uniqueness rather than service to the Nation and to a specific unserved region which has developed since the transportation network developed become a criterion for construction improvement or reconstruction of a transportation system?

Secretary COLEMAN. Mr. Alexander, I would first like to say that I hope I do not have a built-in bias for urban mass transportation facilities. I do come from a large city in the East, but I spend my summers fortunately up in Vermont and I have seen the other side of the problem.

Mr. McFALL I doubt if you are going to be spending this summer up there.

CRITERIA FOR TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS

Secretary COLEMAN. Maybe this committee would have a vested interest in seeing that I do. As you know, in Secretary Brinegar's principles that he was developing, I think it's principle number 7, he indicates that there are many issues which remain to be resolved and much study needs to be done before a national rule public transportation policy can be agreed on. This is a matter that we have under active consideration in the Department.

As I understand it, if we had all the money necessary to do everything using Federal funding, we would put in every place in the country the type of system that the people in that community would want. But you don't have to be on this job long to realize that you never have available all the money that you need to get everything done. Therefore, we are really faced with a problem.

I think this morning we spent time on the Rock Island Railroad. That is very important. There is no doubt about that. But that is an immediate problem because the door may shut down tomorrow.

To the extent that we spend the time and effort on that problem, we certainly are delayed trying to face up to the overall transportation policy, which I think this committee wants.

With respect to an overall transportation policy, we hope that in the next year we can put in place plans which, after debated by the public, will result in an overall national policy. I would have to say that that policy, if it's really going to make sense, will not have 100 percent agreement. If you decide to abandon a train line that in 1890 traditionally served an individual's factory, despite the fact that he only needed it once a week, he is going to say, "I disagree with the overall policy," despite the fact we hope to end up with the national railroad system which will be the most efficient one, will save energy and will deliver people and freight the fastest.

There was a study made with respect to the corridor you talk about. We have that under active consideration and we hope that we can develop a plan which will meet the needs of that area. But I can't stand

before you and say that with limited resources, and other needs to be met throughout the country my allocation or recommendation may not be different from the one that I would have if I were you and had only to take care of your constituency. I hope you will appreciate that. Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Secretary, that is not to say, however, that you would overlook the legitimate transportation needs of a region?

Secretary COLEMAN. I won't, and I certainly don't think that the issue is only uniqueness. That is not the test. As I said the other day, the people in your region should actively develop not only plans but also a funding system if Governors in your region were to think it was a high priority project, and in the allocation of their budget were to free up a fair amount of money for matching funds, I assure you we would work diligently to try to solve the problem. But if what you want me to say is, take the Federal dollar and dump it all in your area and you won't match it, then I think it's going to be more difficult, in terms of an overall budget, to meet your needs.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Secretary, that is exactly what I am not trying to get you to say.

Secretary COLEMAN. Thank you.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I am only suggesting that in the comprehensive approach, which you have suggested that you will take, that we develop a policy which will be a goal that we can work toward. I will take my chances in the Congress on the appropriation process in order to establish that I consider to be the appropriate priorities for this Nation. We all have to give and take. Certainly I know there are more votes in New York than there are in Arkansas.

Mr. KOCH. Why don't we do better than we do then?

Secretary COLEMAN. Mr. Alexander, the fact is, this is a second attempt at a national transportation policy. We met the issue by saying that we don't have all the information to give you an answer now but we are in the active process of developing the answer. I won't make a commitment to you, but I think it would be less than good judgment to come back here a year from now and give you the same answer I gave you today.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Secretary, you told me you would be objective, and I am satisfied with your answer. I look forward to working with you in the development of a legitimate transportation policy which will serve the legitimate needs of this country.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Chairman, I will yield to this gentleman for as much time as he wants.

Mr. McFALL. Go ahead and ask your questions.

NEW HIGHWAY LEGISLATION

Mr. ALEXANDER. Let me ask a couple more questions and then I would like to ask the chairman's permission to submit any additional questons in writing which I may have. I don't want to monopolize the time. After all, I can't compete with the Rock Island.

Mr. Secretary, in the budget for fiscal 1976 there appears the following language:

The Administration will propose major highway legislation which will provide increasing long-term highway funding through 1980. The highway trust fund will be extended and its resources concentrated on the interstate highway system. Special emphasis will be placed on completion of key interconnecting segments

of the interstate system. The flexibility of State governments in the use of other highway funds will be increased. In 1978, States will be permitted to take over some of the Federal motor fuel tax, which will provide them over $1 billion in additional revenues. The legislation will also propose measures to reduce authorizations for highway spending to a level consistent with other national priorities.

This paragraph again, Mr. Secretary, raises very important questions relating to this issue of urban bias that I submitted. The questions are as follows: Who makes the determination of what a key interconnecting segment of the interstate system is? Are these segments already designated?

Secretary COLEMAN. I think that determination would be made by the head of the Federal Highway Administration in consultation with my office.

Mr. LUTZ. Those designations have not been made because the Congress would have to approve this approach. As of now it has not.

HIGHWAY FUNDING PRIORITIES

Mr. ALEXANDER. What are the national priorities with which highway transportation will have to compete for funding? How does highway activity rank among these priorities? What are the priorities among various transportation modes, including highways and mass public transportation? How does highway activity and the development of rural public transportation rank among these activities?

Secretary COLEMAN. In terms of getting the attention of the Secretary, I hope their rank will be equal because I think each one has problems. I think, as a national official, I have a duty to listen to all the arguments. If you would say that once that thought process is completed, I guess I would have to say that to the extent I can control my time the railroad problem has to get a very high priority on my time. You know the old mother's tale about the squeaking wheel gets more attention. That wheel is squeaking.

Mr. ALEXANDER. It's also getting the attention of this committee. Secretary COLEMAN. Also I think there is an energy saving and conservation requirement. I think the railroad problem will get a lot of attention. The highway problem will get tremendous attention, for no other reason than the trust fund. There is a built-in amount of money amounting to $3 billion to $5 billion. That is a big segment of my budget. I think and hope I can persuade the Congress that a program which was started in 1954 and made sense then may need some adjustments today. We think that the Interstate System ought to be completed. We have proposals and we are going to press that. We think that there are federally aided highways that need to be taken care of. We feel that the rural program has to be given a lot of attention. We think that there are different problems where, if you believe in federalism, the emphasis of the contribution might be different than it is when you are dealing with building interstate highways which you also call defense highways.

We also think that the mass transportation system needs a lot of attention, first, to save energy, and second, it is the most efficient way to move the urban poor. You do have congestion in the cities. These are problems that have to be met. Once again I expect the State Governors to give me a lot of support, including matching funds. We also have

the fact, and you recognized it in your last Congress, that a lot of the interstate highways seem almost to be impossible to build through major cities. Therefore, the concept developed in our Department—a diversion of funds from the trust fund if the local community agreesI think may be the way out of the box to get that problem done.

Though I put it last, I don't mean to diminish it's importance, I will spend a lot of time on the problem of the airlines in this country. I think that you need the airlines. Then I have this other problem which is developing, namely, the question of intermodality and how do you make the overall balance. I have had discussions in my Department trying to get each administrator, who has his own bailiwick, to have much more cross-fertilization and to come up with what will be an integrated, balanced national policy.

LOCAL PARTICIPATION ON TRANSPORTATION PROBLEMS

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. Secretary, would it be fair to conclude from your statement that you are not working toward a recommendation of policy which would abolish federally funded highway programs in nonmetropolitan areas?

Secretary COLEMAN. If I did that I don't think I would have this job long. I have that much sense. I don't think that is the way to handle the problem. I really come back to this. As you move from those things which are essentially interstate and national you then have some shift. Because of what has happened in this country, the only part of government that seems to have the money to spend is the Federal Government. This is true because it's the one place where in 1916 we finally faced up to the idea of the graduated income tax. As one Governor told me, it's the only institution of government where you don't have to have a balanced budget. So the pot is there. But it's still a limited pot.

We have to get local participation and local judgment on how to solve these problems. I always found it makes a man much more responsible in solving the problem if he also has to put up some of the money. That is what I hope to do to the best of my ability. I may be fighting percentages or allocations with you longer than you would like me to concerning what the local share should be.

I strongly believe that if you are going to have a national policy which makes sense, and if you are going to have local participation in decisions which make sense, the local people have to put up some of the money. When we turn to New York and the big cities, the Governors are going to say, "We don't have the matching funds." Have I made myself clear?

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS ON HIGHWAY LEGISLATION

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time. I will submit the rest of my questions to the Secretary in writing.

[The questions follow:]

HIGHWAY PROGRAM PROPOSALS

Question. Will the administration's proposal for new highway legislation contain any provisions designed to bring about an end to Federal funding for