WRITTEN STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD ADAM TINDALL-SCHLICHT ADMINISTRATOR
GREAT LAKES ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
HEARING OF THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT HOUSE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 22, 2023
Chairman Rouzer, Ranking Member Napolitano, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony for the record regarding the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget request for the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (GLS or Corporation). I am glad to present this information and to report on the activities of the GLS.
The GLS is a wholly owned government corporation within the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) with its funding appropriated since 1987 from the user fee-based Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF). Since its creation, the GLS has been funded through appropriations derived from user fees and not from the Treasury’s General Fund. Prior to 1987, the GLS’s funding was derived from tolls to commercial vessels transiting the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The GLS’s mission is to operate and maintain the U.S. infrastructure and waterways of the St. Lawrence Seaway, while performing trade and economic development activities designed to enhance the utilization of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System. The GLS is primarily responsible for maintaining and operating Eisenhower and Snell locks located in Massena, New York, and controlling commercial vessel traffic in U.S. areas of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. A majority of GLS employees are veterans, and we have a unionized trade workforce, providing quality jobs in upstate New York. Since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, the GLS has directly served commercial marine transportation stakeholders by providing a safe, reliable, and efficient deep-draft international waterway, in cooperation with its Canadian counterpart, the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation (SLSMC).
Over its 65-year history, more than 3 billion metric tons of cargo valued at more than $500 billion has transited the St. Lawrence Seaway, including grain, iron ore, iron and steel, project cargoes, and other raw and bulk commodities. During the 2022 navigation season, more than 36 million metric tons of cargo valued at $13 billion moved through the binational waterway.1 In recent years, international cruise ships have also been touring U.S. Great Lakes ports via the Seaway in record numbers.
A vessel entering the St. Lawrence Seaway at Montréal, Canada, and transiting to Lake Erie crosses the international border 27 times while passing through the St. Lawrence Seaway’s 15 locks (2 U.S. and 13 Canadian). As a consequence of this unique geography, when constructing the Seaway in 1954, the United States and Canada created a binational governance approach for the Seaway through an exchange of diplomatic notes, constituting a binding international agreement between the countries. It was and remains a bold, optimistic, unique, and effective governance approach; all other U.S. inland waterways are operated, maintained, and managed directly by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard. Due to the geography of the St. Lawrence River and the importance of the sovereignty issues involved, however, the U.S. and Canadian Governments established a binational framework of civilian Federal oversight and control of this international waterway, which today is administered by the GLS and the Canadian SLSMC.
To carry out its mission, the GLS possesses legal authorities that distinguish it from other operating administrations at the U.S. Department of Transportation and from most other Executive Branch agencies. The Wiley-Dondero Act of 1954 (Seaway Act), which created and permanently authorized the GLS, incorporated authorities that were first put into law through the Government Corporation Control Act of 1945. The GLS was created as a government corporation to manage this public infrastructure asset and provide a direct service to customers – moving vessels safely and efficiently through a binational waterway. The succinct and plain language of the Corporation’s enabling statute allows sufficient flexibility to manage its operations in a business-like manner. Some of the distinguishing attributes include the ability to make and carry out contracts or agreements as necessary to conduct business as well as the ability to acquire real and personal property and sell, lease, or dispose of such property.
Together with its mission of providing 24/7 marine transportation services, these legal authorities help promote a culture within the GLS of accountability and customer service.
The deep degree of trust and operational cross-border interaction that has developed between the U.S. and Canadian Seaway entities over the past six decades helps maintain a transit experience for Seaway users that is essentially seamless from a vessel captain’s perspective. It is a remarkable achievement given the operational complexities and multiple jurisdictions that impact that transit.
The St. Lawrence Seaway directly serves an eight-State, two-province region that accounts for one-quarter of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), one-half of North America’s manufacturing and services industries, and is home to nearly one-quarter of the continent’s population.
The Seaway's importance for national security and the Nation’s transportation supply chain lies in its (a) strategic location connecting the Great Lakes region of North America to the Atlantic Ocean, (b) economic significance supporting economic growth, job creation, and trade, while enabling efficient transportation of goods and reducing shipping costs and congestion on alternative routes, (c) role in defense and security in the transportation of goods, equipment, and supplies necessary for military operations, including the movement of naval vessels, and (d) supply chain resilience as an alternative transportation route in the event of disruptions or congestion at other ports or transportation corridors.
Annual commerce on the Great Lakes Seaway System, including U.S. flag interlake activity, typically exceeds 180 million metric tons and serves U.S. farmers, manufacturing workers, miners, and commercial interests throughout the Great Lakes region. Virtually every type of bulk and general cargo commodity moves on the Great Lakes Seaway System, including iron ore for the U.S. steel industry; limestone for construction and steel industries; grain exports from U.S. farms; general cargo such as iron and steel products and heavy machinery; and cement, salt, and stone aggregates for agriculture and industry. Additionally, the Seaway has emerged as a critical transportation route for the shipment of large components essential to the wind energy industry.
Maritime commerce on the Great Lakes Seaway System provides shippers with nearly $4 billion in annual cost savings compared to the next least expensive mode of transportation.2 The Seaway also produces significant economic benefits to the Great Lakes region. An economic impact study completed in 2018 concluded that maritime commerce on the Great Lakes Seaway System sustains over 237,000 U.S. and Canadian jobs, $35 billion in economic activity, $14.2 billion in personal income, and $6.6 billion in federal, state/provincial, and local taxes each year.3 An update to the 2018 study is expected to be released later this year.
FY 2024 Budget Request
For FY 2024, the President’s Budget requests an appropriation of $40.3 million from the HMTF to fund the GLS’s operations and maintenance of the U.S. portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, as well as capital infrastructure projects to rehabilitate and modernize the GLS’s perpetual assets and associated equipment. The request represents an increase of $1.8 million from the FY 2023 enacted level.
The budget request includes two programs – (1) Seaway Operations and Maintenance and (2) Seaway Infrastructure, which support the Administration’s priorities of safety, job creation and economic growth, and transformational infrastructure investments.
The FY 2024 request for the GLS’s Seaway Operations and Maintenance program is $24.0 million to provide the GLS with the financial and personnel resources necessary to perform its operational, maintenance, and administrative functions, including lock operations, marine services, vessel traffic control, asset maintenance, ballast water management, safety and environmental inspections, and trade promotion and economic development.
For its Seaway Infrastructure program, the FY 2024 President’s Budget includes a request of $16.3 million for 12 infrastructure-related capital projects, including $7 million for the replacement of 65-year old GLS Administration Building, a primary business center for the Corporation in Massena; $3 million to replace deteriorated and damaged concrete at Eisenhower Lock and Snell Lock; $1.5 million to upgrade electrical distribution equipment at the GLS locks and maintenance facility; and $1.5 million for paving and drainage upgrades to GLS roadways.
Beginning in FY 2024, the GLS will launch a multi-year effort to rehabilitate and/or replace its various buildings and facilities in Massena, N.Y., that are used for both employee workspace and storage and were built during the construction of the U.S. assets of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s. All these facilities/buildings are owned and operated by the GLS, including the Administration Building. Most of these buildings/facilities have reached the end of their useful life and do not meet ADA or energy standards.
In FY 2022, the GLS contracted with an architectural/engineering firm to establish a facility master plan to include a review of the entire GLS’s Massena building/workplace inventory to assess current conditions, address needed maintenance and/or rehabilitation to meet current workplace and energy standards, and provide cost estimates for new, more energy and space efficient workspaces. The facility master plan identified 20 capital improvement projects with a total projected cost of approximately $32 million over the next 20 years.
Safety and Reliability
The continued safety and reliability of the St. Lawrence Seaway is the foundation upon which we can promote and accommodate increases in maritime cargo. The Seaway is already one of the world’s safest waterways and that safety record continues to improve. Over the past 25 years, the average number of international vessel incidents in the Seaway requiring GLS intervention has decreased significantly. From 1996-2006, the average number of incidents was 19 per year. However, from 2007-2021, the average number of incidents declined to only 6 per year. This positive development can be attributed to several factors, including the U.S.-Canadian Enhanced Seaway Inspection Program, the use of the Seaway’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel traffic management technology beginning in 2002, the use of the Seaway’s Hands Free Mooring system beginning in 2018, the well-trained and skilled GLS lock operations and maintenance staff, and a major fleet renewal program implemented by many of the Seaway’s commercial carriers.
In addition, since the Seaway’s opening in 1959, the GLS has consistently maintained a near- perfect reliability rate of 99 percent for commercial users of its locks in the U.S. sector of the waterway. During the 2022 navigation season (March 22, 2022-January 1, 2023), the GLS workforce ably operated and maintained the waterway and lock system at a reliability rate of 99.6 percent and lock availability rate of 99.97 percent. This high mark of success is due primarily to the GLS’s efficient management and operations of the locks and control of vessel traffic. Global customers from nearly 50 countries return each year to use the Seaway because of the waterway’s strong safety record, efficient operations, and strong reliability rate.
Upgrades to the Seaway’s traffic management system are currently underway and are expected to provide additional safety, reliability, and environmental benefits. While the primary goal of the envisioned Vessel Information System (VIS) project is to improve transits within the Seaway, new applications for connecting the entire Great Lakes together will help enable enhanced voyage planning from foreign origin, transit through the Great Lakes, and to destination. The VIS will have the ability to gather and process data that could provide recommendations to safely facilitate maximum operational efficiency. This includes scheduling vessel inspections, bridge closures, pilotage services, and dock usage at ports, as well as lockages, while respecting the interests of individual vessels. This multi-year project is underway, in conjunction with the Canadian SLSMC, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Cambridge, Massachusetts), other Great Lakes Seaway System users, and stakeholders.
Environmental Stewardship
The GLS also implements strict ballast water management efforts to prevent any new introductions of aquatic invasive species via commercial vessels entering Seaway waters. In 2008, the GLS and Canadian SLSMC jointly started enforcing regulations that all vessels with no ballast in their tanks must conduct saltwater flushing of the empty ballast water tanks before arriving in the Seaway. The GLS, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, Transport Canada, and the SLSMC, formed the Ballast Water Working Group (BWWG) to enforce ballast water inspections of all vessels to ensure these regulations are carried out. The BWWG’s annual summary report documents the Group’s inspection results and findings.4 The report measures both the performance of the binational inspection team in inspecting the ballast tanks of incoming ocean vessels and the compliance by the oceangoing trade in meeting U.S. and Canadian ballast water management requirements.
From both a performance and compliance perspective, the results of the 2022 report are outstanding. In 2022, every ballast tank of every ocean vessel entering the Seaway was assessed – 10,239 ballast tanks on 521 vessel transits. The BWWG found that the compliance rate by industry in 2022 for low salinity non-compliant tanks was 98.2 percent.5 In those rare instances where salinity levels do not meet the standard, the ballast tanks are retained to ensure no discharge is made in the Lakes, and tanks are then re-inspected on the vessel’s outbound journey to ensure that the tank was not used on its voyage in the Great Lakes. Since 2009, 100 percent of international vessels entering the Seaway have received a ballast water management assessment by GLS inspectors or other BWWG partners.
The Great Lakes Seaway System has one of the most stringent inspection regimes in world. The effectiveness of the Seaway’s ballast water inspection program has been publicly credited as a key factor in dramatically reducing the risk of introduction of invasive species into the Great Lakes. Since 2006, there have been only 2 new aquatic invasive species identified in the Great Lakes that the scientific community considers are possibly associated with ballast water, but the timing of introduction and actual source pathways are uncertain. This can be compared to 15 new aquatic invasive species that were identified from 1993-2006, the equivalent time period before the new regulations, which the scientific community strongly attributes to ballast water.
A recently published study has given independent scientific validation to the binational ballast water regulations. The study analyzed aquatic invasive species invasion rates and shipping data for three different regulatory periods, pre-regulation, partial regulation, and total regulation, and concluded that the Seaway’s ballast water regulations are likely the primary, but possibly not only, reason for the dramatic reduction in the apparent invasion rate for the Great Lakes-St.
Lawrence River basin. The report states, “To our knowledge, the 2006/2008 regulation is the only case of a policy intervention that is linked to a massive reduction of the invasion rate of a large aquatic ecosystem,” and “this case is an encouraging example of binational response to a transboundary problem, whose apparent success was achieved through rigorous application of an evidence-based, operationally feasible management solution involving participation by governments, the shipping industry, and academia from both countries.”6 The authors believe that the regulation has likely prevented several disruptive invasions, and it is their opinion that ballast water exchange should be maintained as a requirement for vessels entering the Great Lakes in the future, even if performance standards requiring ballast water treatment systems are imposed on all inbound vessels.
While the GLS has previously received validation of the effectiveness of its ballast water regulations and inspection program this independent validation is the most comprehensive and definitive analysis to date that verifies the effectiveness and success of this important binational environmental program. The GLS is proud of its efforts in serving as an environmental gatekeeper to the St. Lawrence Seaway and will continue to perform these important inspections.
Infrastructure Modernization
The locks, channels, and accompanying infrastructure of the St. Lawrence Seaway owned and maintained by the GLS are “perpetual” transportation assets that require periodic and regular capital reinvestment to continue operating safely, reliably, and efficiently. After 50 years of continuous operation with only minimal capital reinvestment, Congress approved the authorization and funding for the GLS’s infrastructure renewal program beginning in FY 2009. The start of the program marked the first time in the Seaway’s history that a coordinated effort to repair and modernize the U.S. Seaway infrastructure had taken place.
From FY 2009-2022, the GLS spent $209 million on 62 infrastructure-related projects. Major infrastructure projects completed over that period included maintenance dredging in the U.S. portion of the Seaway navigation channel, lock miter gate and culvert valve machinery upgrades, culvert valve replacements, hands-free mooring installation at the locks, gatelifter upgrades, miter gate rehabilitation, tugboat replacements, and various other structural and equipment repairs and/or replacements.
During the 2022 navigation season, the GLS recorded the lowest level of delays on record for lock-related disruptions to navigation (2 hours, 3 minutes), resulting in a lock availability rate of 99.97 percent for the 286-day 2022 season. The successful planning and execution of the SIP, which began in FY 2009, is a key reason for the achievement of the high reliability rate.
The GLS Seaway Infrastructure Program (SIP) is developed annually by Corporation engineering, maintenance, lock operations, and policy staff following annual winter preventative maintenance work and inspections. This capital planning process ensures that aging machinery, equipment, and parts are rehabilitated/replaced; that buildings for employees and the public, grounds, and utilities are sufficiently maintained/refurbished; and that commercial trade continues to move on the Seaway safely and without interruption or delays.
Trade and Economic Development
The statute that created the GLS provided general authority for the Corporation to undertake trade and economic development activities, and this is an important aspect of our mission. In recent years, Congress has provided additional funding for the GLS to expand this program. The GLS devotes resources to economic development activities aimed at increasing commercial trade through the St. Lawrence Seaway and improving economic conditions in the eight Great Lakes States. The primary benefit is the stimulation of U.S. and Canadian port city economies through increased maritime industry activity, including services and employment to support commerce via the Seaway. In 2015, the GLS designated a Great Lakes Regional Representative who leads this value-added service for the wider stakeholder community.
Activities undertaken by the GLS include facilitating new trade for Great Lakes Seaway System ports, conducting trade research and analysis to assist Great Lakes Seaway System stakeholders in identifying cargo trends and new business, participating in joint marketing efforts with the SLSMC, promoting the Seaway System to prospective customers, and assessing the economic impact of Great Lakes Seaway shipping.
The GLS’s trade and economic development activities were instrumental in the 2014 launch of the first regularly scheduled international liner service to a U.S. port on the Great Lakes since the 1970’s. Working directly with Great Lakes ports, the GLS helps identify ways to increase tonnage traffic in traditional cargoes as well as in diversifying the types of cargo moving through the Seaway.
Additionally, the GLS has been instrumental in the growth of international cruising activity in the Great Lakes. In January 2020, Viking Cruise Line announced its Great Lakes itineraries and the construction of two Seaway-sized cruise vessels. The first vessel made its maiden voyage in May 2022, while the second vessel entered the Great Lakes Seaway System in May 2023. This adds to the nine other cruise vessels that have itineraries in the Lakes. The GLS continues to work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to find ways to streamline passenger processing and bring more cruise vessels to Great Lakes ports. Seaway stakeholders and Great Lakes communities are realizing the benefits of this growing tourism industry through the economic impact that the Great Lakes passenger cruising is stimulating. It is a success story that has resonated through local communities and is amplified by increasing recognition of the Great Lakes as a destination of choice in national and international profile.
Current Issues
Water Levels – Water outflows and levels from Lake Ontario to the lower St. Lawrence River can significantly impact the safe and efficient operation of commercial navigation in the Seaway. If Lake Ontario water levels reach certain levels, the downstream water levels and regulated outflows can become unsafe for commercial navigation through the Seaway. The 2023 shipping season has not been significantly affected by water level or outflow issues due to less precipitation or drier conditions overall this year.
Lake Ontario water outflows are regulated by the International Joint Commission (IJC), and its International Lake Ontario St. Lawrence River Board (Board) is the entity that manages the outflow rates. Outflows are governed by a water regulation plan, Plan 2014, which the IJC and the Board implemented in January 2017 after many years of interagency and binational discussions regarding the prioritization of uses for the boundary waters. The GLS and the Canadian Seaway have worked closely with the IJC and the Board over the past several years to ensure that the priority rights of the Seaway and commercial navigation established by the U.S. and Canadian Governments in the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, reaffirmed by both countries in their concurrence of Plan 2014, and reiterated in the accompanying joint U.S. and Canadian Government documents, including the Supplementary Order of Approval, continue to be respected.
Pilotage – All international vessels entering the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System are required by U.S. and Canadian regulations to have a certified vessel pilot on board to assist the vessel’s captain in navigating the vessel. The oversight of pilotage services is a state-regulated activity everywhere in the United States, except for the Great Lakes, where pilotage is regulated by the U.S. Coast Guard Office of Great Lakes Pilotage pursuant to the Great Lakes Pilotage Act of 1960.
In addition to overseeing the three U.S. pilot districts in the Great Lakes Seaway System, the U.S. Coast Guard also establishes the rates that the U.S. pilots may charge for the provision of their services to vessel owners. Changes in the rate adjustment methodology have been controversial and have been met with criticism and litigation from various U.S. and Canadian commercial navigation stakeholders. The availability and increasing cost of U.S. pilotage services in the Great Lakes Seaway System are crucial components of the Seaway’s safety and economic competitiveness. It is essential that the availability of Great Lakes Seaway System pilots be maintained in a manner that ensures safety while promoting the competitiveness of the waterway.
Safety – The GLS remains dedicated to safely and efficiently operating the U.S. portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway while also promoting the economic benefits of the marine mode, attracting new cargoes to the Great Lakes Seaway System, and leveraging technology and innovation to enhance the system’s performance and safety. Since the opening of the Seaway in 1959, the GLS has been a model of binational partnership, ensuring that this international waterway is one of the safest and most reliable transportation routes in the world. With the investments being made in the St. Lawrence Seaway by the United States and Canada, it will remain so for many years to come.
Green Shipping Corridor Network – In November 2022, the U.S. and Canada jointly announced the intention to facilitate development of a Green Shipping Corridor Network (GSCN) on the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System. Since that time, U.S. and Canadian federal agencies have coordinated with state, provincial, local, private-sector, non-governmental, and indigenous peoples’ organizations to begin that process.
On April 4, 2023, the GLS and SLSMC co-sponsored the first-ever Collaborative Forum (Forum) regarding establishing a GSCN on the System. The Forum was designed to create a common body of knowledge to identify opportunities for voluntary collaboration efforts and implementation strategies, based on best available science and technology, explore physical and operational issues affecting development of the GSCN, and establish GSCN Working Groups. It was a highly collaborative event, which included keynote speeches, interactive panels, and robust collaboration among the nearly 100 attendees. Feedback from attendees suggests that the Forum was well received as an informative and constructive first step in establishing the GSCN. The Seaway Corporations will continue to support the U.S. and Canadian governments towards establishment of a voluntary GSCN, including coordination with implementation working groups and planning future forums.
Thank you again for the opportunity to submit this statement for the record.
# # # # #
1https://greatlakes-seaway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/tonnage2022_12_en.pdf
2 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Great Lakes Navigation System: Economic Strength to the Nation, January 2009.
3Economic Impacts of Maritime Shipping in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Region, Martin Associates, July 2018.
4https://greatlakes-seaway.com/en/commercial-shipping/transiting-the-seaway/ballast-water/
5https://greatlakes-seaway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2022_BW_Rpt_EN.pdf
6 Ricciardi, A., & MacIsaac, H. J. (2022). Vector control reduces the rate of species invasion in the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem. Conservation Letters, e12866. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12866
STATEMENT OF ANN C. PHILLIPS
MARITIME ADMINISTRATOR MARITIME ADMINISTRATION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS & SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HEARING ON “POSTURE AND READINESS OF THE MOBILITY ENTERPRISE”
March 28, 2023
Good afternoon, Chairman Waltz, Chairman Kelly, Ranking Member Garamendi, Ranking Member Courtney, and Members of the Subcommittees. Thank you for your tremendous support for the Maritime Administration (MARAD), the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), and the U.S. maritime industry. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget, and how this request will enable MARAD to continue to advance key priorities in support of our economic and national security.
FY 2024 BUDGET REQUEST
MARAD’s mission is to foster, promote, and develop the maritime industry of the United States to meet the nation’s economic and security needs. The President’s FY 2024 Budget request of $980.2 million for MARAD will enable the agency to continue to strengthen our sealift enterprise by advancing recapitalization of the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) and the vital commercial sealift programs that support U.S.-flagged vessels operating in the foreign trade.
The President’s request will also support investments in our ports and waterways to improve supply chain resiliency, expand our efforts to address climate change, and advance environmental justice for port communities. In FY 2024, the third tranche of funding—$450 million—provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to support the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) will be invested in new grants. The President’s budget requests an additional $230 million to support PIDP, which would bring the total amount of funding available in FY 2024 to $680 million and enable us to continue modernizing our ports to help reduce the costs of moving goods from ships to shelves and from American farmers and factories to destinations overseas.
In addition, the President’s request will enable MARAD to continue critical investments to address the urgent and long-standing challenges at the USMMA. Further, it will enable us to implement the many new authorities and responsibilities provided in the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY 2023 NDAA).
NATIONAL SECURITY
Providing sealift to meet the nation’s needs is a critical part of MARAD’s mission, and we have proudly met the challenges of managing the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) for 77 years. America’s strategic sealift provides the nation with the capability to rapidly project power globally by deploying Department of Defense (DOD) forces and moving cargoes worldwide during peacetime and wartime—including through contested environments—whenever activated by the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM).
Ready Reserve Force (RRF)
The President’s FY 2024 Budget requests $809.6 million from DOD budgetary authority for MARAD to acquire, upgrade, and maintain vessels in the NDRF and RRF. These funds enable MARAD to maintain the fleet in a ready, reliable, and responsive condition, using a contracted workforce of commercial ship managers and a small cadre of shipboard caretaker crewmembers. Sustaining sufficient resources for maintenance and recapitalization will ensure MARAD’s ability to maintain the fleet in a ready, reliable, and responsive condition to meet strategic sealift for the U.S. Armed Forces, and humanitarian support when called upon during national emergencies, as well as maintain MARAD’s NDRF fleet mooring sites.
MARAD’s RRF consists of sealift ships providing a mix of capabilities. RRF ships, along with a smaller number of Military Sealift Command vessels, provide sealift surge capability to deliver DOD equipment and supplies where needed during the initial stages of a response to a major contingency. Today, the RRF is a fleet of 45 vessels, with an average age of more than 45 years, maintained in a reduced operating status to be ready to sail within five days of activation. The fleet will grow to 51 vessels after the planned transfer of additional surge sealift and prepositioning vessels from the Military Sealift Command is complete by the end of FY 2025.
As part of the Navy’s overall plan for sealift recapitalization, MARAD is responsible for maintaining the existing RRF ships through the recapitalization period, including dozens of ships that are now nearly 50 years old or even older. Continued focus on safety, material condition, and regulatory compliance has been difficult to sustain, and challenges have been compounded by equipment and parts delays, and the increased scope of the repairs we have had to undertake, including steelwork. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated difficulties in maintaining ship and mariner readiness.
MARAD is working to advance the urgent recapitalization of the RRF with the limited authorities provided. In March 2022—and for the first time in nearly 30 years—we announced the purchase of two vessels. These two ships, the former HONOR and FREEDOM, joined the RRF as the CAPE ARUNDEL and CAPE CORTES, adding more than 432,000 square feet of total sealift capacity and 316,000 square feet of military cargo capacity. Both of these U.S.-flag vessels participated in the MSP which gave them priority for acquisition based on statutory language, and while differences in marine safety regimens have slowed progress towards certification, the ships will be upgraded in U.S. shipyards to add additional capabilities in the summer of 2023 as planned.
On January 27, 2023, the DOD transmitted the next proposed ship purchase decision to Congress for the required 30-day notification period. With no noted concerns, these three ships will be purchased and placed under U.S. government ownership starting in April 2023 and continuing into summer 2023.
In the FY 2023 NDAA, MARAD was directed to develop a Roll-On/Roll-Off ship design for the construction of 10 new vessels for the NDRF to begin construction in 2024. In response to this directive, the RRF program is documenting the actions necessary to implement a limited shipbuilding program. Modeled after the NSMV program, this shipbuilding effort would leverage commercial practices and utilize the Vessel Construction Manager approach to establish price and delivery schedules. At this time, MARAD activity is limited to developing the implementation plan and the requirements for a concept design for new construction.
Commercial Sealift
Our Government-owned sealift fleet is supported and leveraged by a fleet of privately owned, commercially operated U.S.-flag vessels in the Maritime Security Program (MSP), the Cable Ship Security Program (CSP), and the new Tanker Security Program (TSP).
The FY 2024 Budget requests the full authorization level of $318 million for the MSP, which is the heart of sustainment sealift. In return for a stipend, MSP operators provide the DOD with assured access to their ships and their global networks of critical capabilities, including intermodal facilities at home and abroad used to unload and transport military cargoes to final destinations.
There are 60 commercially viable, militarily useful vessels enrolled in MSP. These vessels are active in international trade and are on-call to meet the nation’s need for sustained military sealift capacity. The MSP supports and sustains the merchant mariner base by providing employment for 2,400 highly trained, skilled U.S. merchant mariners who may also crew the U.S. Government-owned surge sealift fleet when activated. The MSP also supports more than 5,000 additional shore-side jobs in the maritime industry.
In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration is working to support the growth of our U.S.- flagged foreign-trading fleet. The President’s budget requests $60 million at the authorized level for the TSP. As you know, a study required by the FY 2020 NDAA found a substantial risk to the nation associated with heavy reliance on foreign-flagged tankers, particularly in a contested environment. The TSP will be comprised of active, commercially viable, militarily useful, privately owned product tank vessels. I am pleased to report that at the end of last year, MARAD issued the updated Voluntary Tanker Agreement and an Interim Final Rule. The application period closed on February 17, 2023, and we anticipate announcing the first 10 ships selected for enrollment in the near term.
The 10-ship TSP initiative will create new employment for approximately 500 U.S. mariners. In a 2017 study, MARAD estimated that we are approximately 1,800 mariners short of the number of licensed and unlicensed mariners needed to operate the commercial fleet and the RRF in the event of a full mobilization exceeding 4-6 months. Based on MARAD’s meetings with the industry and maritime labor unions, it appears that the shortage may have worsened in the post- COVID work environment.
MARAD is partnering with our stakeholders, both Federal and non-Federal, to work to identify strategies to help address the mariner shortage and ensure their readiness. Last fall, I hosted a summit with industry and federal stakeholders to discuss the mariner shortfall. Participants identified the need to address barriers to entry in the merchant marine as well as the need to ensure quality of life aboard ships such as ensuring internet connectivity for crew members.
We also note that the existing Coast Guard licensing system (Merchant Mariner Licensing and Documentation system) relies on labor-intensive paper copies and manual entries and is not set up to provide critical data regarding the number of and availability mariners with various credentials. We fully support the Coast Guard’s ongoing efforts to modernize the system to enable efficient issuance of mariner credentials and provide enhanced querying capabilities.
Further, we must ensure that mariners’ working environments are safe—and that the maritime industry is a place where every mariner can succeed on the basis of their professionalism and skill. MARAD’s work on the Every Mariner Builds a Respectful Culture (EMBARC) program, which is discussed in more detail below, is helping advance long overdue culture change across the maritime industry, especially at sea.
MARAD is also focused on supporting our U.S.-flagged fleet through opportunities to carry cargo. As I said last year in testimony before the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, put simply, without cargoes, ships will leave the U.S. flag, our modest fleet will continue to dwindle to the point that the number of American vessels is simply too small to meet government shipper agency requirements whether military or civilian. We are working with the Biden-Harris Administration’s Made In America Office to help agencies understand cargo preference requirements. In addition, I have written to all federal departments and agencies explaining how MARAD can help them ensure they meet their obligations under cargo preference laws and regulations.
MARAD is also working diligently on revisions to cargo preference regulations as required by the Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA.
One of the current challenges with meeting cargo preference requirements is ensuring we have both enough vessels and the wide mix of vessel types to carry the many types of cargoes that the government impels. To help attract additional vessels to our flag, last year, the Biden-Harris Administration proposed that Congress eliminate the 3-year period that vessels entering the U.S. flag must currently wait before they are eligible to carry civilian agency preference cargoes.
This would ensure that vessels that choose to sail under the U.S.-flag can carry preference cargoes as soon as they enter the flag and provide opportunity to diversify the types of vessels available to civilian agencies to carry cargoes. In return the vessels would be required to remain under U.S. flag for 3 years. Unfortunately, this proposal was not adopted by the prior Congress and no new vessels have been added to the fleet capable of meeting civilian agency cargo needs since 2019.
U.S. MERCHANT MARINE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
MARAD supports mariner training programs to produce highly skilled U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) credentialed officers for the U.S. merchant marine. Specifically, MARAD supports mariner education and training at USMMA, and it facilitates mariner education through the extensive support we provide to the six state maritime academies (SMA).
Graduates of USMMA are required to maintain their licenses for 6 years and to sail on commercial vessels or serve in other capacities—such as on active duty in U.S. uniformed services—for 5 years. USMMA is also the principal source of new officers for the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Sealift Officer (SSO) Program, which maintains a cadre of approximately 2,000 U.S. Naval Reserve Officers with the training and credentials to operate strategic sealift resources at times of national need.
Funding will support academic operating expenses for approximately 975 midshipmen and 292 faculty and support staff, including expanded support for the extensive facility maintenance and repair needs of the Academy’s aging physical plant and for our work implementing the EMBARC program.
MARAD established the EMBARC program in December 2021 to help prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment during the Sea Year program, to support survivors, strengthen a culture of accountability, and improve safety for all mariners. Vessel operators enroll in the EMBARC program before USMMA cadets can train on an operator’s vessels.
Now, thanks to the FY 2023 NDAA, commercially operated vessels must comply with standards set by MARAD regarding the prevention of, and response to, sexual assault and harassment before they can train USMMA cadets. In addition, the FY 2023 NDAA authorized the Secretary of Transportation to establish a Sexual Assault Advisory Council to review existing policies and make recommendations for improvements to build on our efforts to strengthen prevention of sexual assault and sexual harassment on campus and during Sea Year and ensure appropriate responses when such incidents occur.
Further, the FY 2023 NDAA gave MARAD the authority to withhold payments from companies participating in the MSP, CSP, and TSP if they do not comply with the policies and requirements established by MARAD for the protection of cadets from sexual assault and sexual harassment. MARAD is working as quickly as possible to develop a proposed EMBARC rule pursuant to the authority provided by the FY 2023 NDAA.
In addition, the FY 2023 NDAA requires that ocean-going vessels include sexual assault and sexual harassment response policies in their Safety Management Systems (SMS)—which has been a central tenet of EMBARC. In short, the FY 2023 NDAA reinforces a long overdue change in shipboard culture that will promote fair and equitable treatment of all mariners and contribute to a safer working environment.
Today, there are 16 commercial operators enrolled in EMBARC; together, they operate more than 140 vessels. All vessel operators that are required to carry USMMA cadets under 46 U.S.C.
§ 51307(b)—i.e., operators with vessels enrolled in the MSP and the CSP—have enrolled in EMBARC. Companies that enroll vessels in the new TSP will be required to have completed enrollment in EMBARC as a condition of enrolling in the program.
Thanks to the incredible support provided by the Military Sealift Command, the Navy, and the USCG, the Midshipmen in the USMMA Class of 2023 have accrued the sea time needed to qualify to take their licensing exams on time and to graduate on time.
Of the funding requested in the FY 2024 budget for USMMA, $92 million would support emergency and recurring maintenance and repair activities on campus as well as major investments in aging facilities and infrastructure at USMMA.
The Biden-Harris Administration has long recognized the urgent need to rehabilitate and replace existing infrastructure and to significantly strengthen the ability of MARAD and USMMA to plan and manage capital investments and major maintenance efforts. Working closely with leaders and experts from the Department of Transportation (DOT), MARAD has implemented numerous measures to improve our ability to manage capital projects. Consistent with a recommendation from the National Academy of Public Administration, MARAD/USMMA created a new director position that is staffed with a Senior Executive to oversee all capital and maintenance projects at USMMA. MARAD and the DOT have also created new oversight bodies to ensure that investments of taxpayer funds are properly managed, and yield completed projects that address the Academy’s most urgent needs.
Late last year, MARAD provided to the Committees on Appropriations and made public USMMA’s Fiscal Year 2022 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The Fiscal Year 2022 CIP explains significant changes made to active and out-year projects since USMMA’s last CIP report, which was provided in FY 2019. These changes are based on demonstrated need, as well as the principles that guide our prioritization of capital and maintenance projects. Specifically, our highest priorities for capital and maintenance investments are supporting the safety, health, and well-being of Midshipmen and supporting the Academy’s academic mission.
In December 2022, the USMMA awarded a campuswide maintenance contract, which fulfills another key recommendation from the National Academy of Public Administration. The contract has a $42 million ceiling over the next 5 years and will help address the significant maintenance backlog. Part of the funding requested for FY 2024 will enable us to implement task orders under the campuswide maintenance contract to address routine maintenance on a scheduled basis and help reduce the incidence of emergency repairs.
Capital improvement funds requested in FY 2024 would enable us to replace USMMA’s existing storm water management systems, which date back to the 1940s and are broken beyond repair.
Funding would also enable us to replace the seawall, which can no longer meet projected storm surges and anticipated rises in sea level.
The FY 2024 Budget request also includes $53.4 million to provide support to the six SMAs. This request includes funding for vessel management, logistics, and maintenance oversight to prepare the schools to receive and operate the National Security Multi-Mission Vessels (NSMV).
Funding would also be available to address unanticipated increases in steel costs for the NSMVs, and support pier improvements at SMAs necessary to enable heavy weather mooring of the NSMVs. MARAD has concluded a cooperative agreement with the State University of New York Maritime College under which MARAD will cover 80% of the costs of their eligible pier upgrades up to just over $18 million.
Funding would also meet maintenance and repair costs to maintain the legacy school ships and continue our direct support to the SMAs.
There are now four NSMVs under construction. The first ship—the EMPIRE STATE—is already launched and we anticipate taking delivery of the ship in June of this year.
ECONOMIC, CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE INVESTMENTS
The President’s FY 2024 budget requests $230 million for the PIDP program to provide grants to improve port infrastructure and facilities and to stimulate economic growth in and around ports while also improving safety, addressing climate change and environmental justice, and strengthening our supply chains. In addition to the funding requested in the budget, the BIL provides $450 million in advance appropriations for this program in FY 2024. Together, this funding would provide a $680 million investment for port infrastructure projects.
Last year, MARAD awarded more than $703 million in PIDP grants. This total included the first tranche of $450 million in funding provided by the BIL, approximately $234 million in FY 2022 appropriations, and unexpended funding from a prior PIDP round. The 2022 PIDP awards will fund 41 projects in 22 states and one territory. More than 60 percent of the PIDP awards made in 2022 benefit ports in historically disadvantaged communities. More than $150 million in the funding awarded last year focuses on port electrification to improve air quality, while nearly $100 million of the awarded funding supports projects that will advance offshore wind farm development. These efforts are helping to advance the important objectives of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the vital goal of President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative.
This year, thanks again to the BIL and the funding provided in the FY 2023 appropriations measure, more than $662 million in funding is available for PIDP grants. The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for this program is open and applications are due on April 28, 2023.
The FY 2024 Budget also requests $11 million for the United States Marine Highway Program. Marine highways support our maritime supply chains and enable more cost-effective transportation options for U.S. shippers and manufacturers.
The FY 2023 NDAA made significant changes to this program, including renaming it from the “America’s Marine Highway Program” to the new “United States Marine Highway Program” and expanding the types of cargo that projects receiving funding under the program can support. The changes made by the NDAA are incorporated into this year’s NOFO for the United States Marine Highway Program, which is now open. There is $12.4 million in funding available, and applications are due on April 28, 2023. Importantly, thanks to another change made in the FY 2023 NDAA, any eligible project along any of the 29 designated Marine Highway Routes— which encompass 41 states—is eligible to apply for funding.
In 2022, MARAD awarded nearly $39 million in marine highway projects. This unprecedented level of funding was made possible by the BIL, which provided a one-time infusion of $25 million to support the expansion of marine highways. The funding awarded last year will support 12 projects across the nation—and nearly all the funding is supporting projects in Historically Disadvantaged Communities or Federally designated community development zones.
The FY 2024 Budget also requests $20 million for MARAD’s Small Shipyards grants to support infrastructure improvements at qualified small U.S. shipyards to help improve their efficiency and ability to compete for domestic and international commercial ship construction and maintenance opportunities. Investing in shipbuilding supports job creation in a vital domestic industrial base. These grants can also be used to support the acquisition of equipment that reduces negative climate impacts and adapts technologies that reduce shipyard power consumption.
Within MARAD’s FY 2024 Budget request, $8.5 million will support the Maritime Environmental and Technical Assistance (META) program. The META program fulfills a niche in the Federal government by being specifically designed to assist stakeholders with innovation that supports a safe and efficient U.S. maritime transportation sector. Approximately 75 percent of the FY 2024 funding will be focused on efforts related to decarbonization of the maritime transportation sector.
The FY 2024 Budget request for MARAD includes $3 million for the Maritime Guaranteed Loan Program (Title XI) to provide the salaries and overhead support to manage the loan portfolio, currently at $1.5 billion in outstanding loan guarantees. This program is designed to manage loans that help to promote the U.S. shipyard industry by providing additional opportunities for vessel construction and modernization, including repowering, that may otherwise be unavailable to ship owners.
In June 2022, MARAD designated vessels constructed or reconstructed for use to support offshore wind facilities as Vessels of National Interest. This is the first time that this authority has been used since it was added to Title XI statute in 2019. With this designation, applications for projects qualifying as Vessels of National Interest have priority for review and funding.
Since this designation, there has been a significant increase in interest in the Title XI Program to support offshore wind vessels. The program has applications for seven projects under credit worthiness review, including five projects for Jones Act-qualified windfarm vessels.
The President’s FY 2024 Budget requests $6 million for MARAD’s Ship Disposal Program for support staff and overhead costs to continue to put primary emphasis on the disposal of the worst conditioned, non-retention vessels to mitigate environmental risks.
CONCLUSION
These programs represent MARAD’s priorities that are supported by the President’s Budget. We will continue to keep you apprised of the progress of our program activities and initiatives in these areas in the coming year.
Thank you for the opportunity to present and discuss the President’s Budget for MARAD. I appreciate the Subcommittee’s continuing support for maritime programs, and I look forward to any questions you and the members of the Subcommittee may have.
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Written Statement of Tristan Brown Deputy Administrator
Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Hearing on Pipeline Reauthorization
March 8, 2023
Introduction
Chairman Nehls, Ranking Member Payne, Jr., and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) pipeline safety program. I appreciate this subcommittee’s support for strengthening pipeline safety across our country. I am here on a panel of pipeline safety experts to discuss PHMSA’s work advancing pipeline safety, but I want to acknowledge that as an agency, as a department, and across the Federal Government, we also remain focused on holding Norfolk Southern accountable for the terrible tragedy in East Palestine, OH—and will continue to provide support to that community and to the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent lead investigator. Over the years, despite often fierce opposition from the industries we regulate, PHMSA has worked to strengthen safety measures for transporting hazardous materials via rail and other modes of transportation, We look forward to working with members on both sides of the aisle to continue those efforts by statute, by regulation, or any other means of achieving results for the people of East Palestine and many other communities that have suffered similar incidents in the past.
At DOT, and within PHMSA, safety is the top priority for Secretary Buttigieg, Deputy Secretary Trottenberg, me, and all of the employees at PHMSA. Specifically, PHMSA is responsible for overseeing the safe transport of hazardous materials—through pipelines and also via other modes of transportation—including planes, trains, trucks, and vessels. PHMSA oversees the safe design, operation, and maintenance of the Nation’s nearly 3.4 million miles of oil, gas, and other hazardous materials pipeline facilities for hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and other emerging fuels.
Additionally, PHMSA’s oversight of hazardous materials via other modes includes nearly 1 in 10 goods that are transported in the U.S., everything from nuclear waste to lithium-ion batteries, to explosives used in excavation, mining, and energy production. PHMSA also chairs the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Dangerous Goods Panel, the international standards making body that sets the global framework for the safe and efficient transport of these materials across borders and around the world.
Under Secretary Buttigieg’s leadership, PHMSA has been focused on executing bipartisan congressional mandates in the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2020 (PIPES Act of 2020), historic infrastructure investments from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, strengthening our safety mission, and ensuring that the U.S. has the safest, most efficient and competitive transportation system in the world.
From the standpoint of the volume of work before us as an agency, the challenges in carrying out our safety mission have never been greater. We oversee an aging infrastructure that requires robust maintenance, and, when needed, replacement. Most of the cross-country pipeline infrastructure was built shortly after World War II—meaning many pipelines are over 80 years old—and there are even a few gas distribution segments that were installed during the Civil War era, more than 150 years ago.
PHMSA has been integral to the whole-of-government approach to mitigating unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions—an essential component of operating the safest, most efficient and economically competitive transportation and energy system of the 21st century.
Nearly two-thirds of the energy we consume in the U.S. is transported via pipeline. Over the past few decades, growth in energy production in the United States has increased to record levels.
Concurrently, U.S. transportation of these products has necessarily increased, and exports of energy have—according to the Energy Information Administration—also reached record levels. This has placed new and heightened demands on our pipeline and refined products storage infrastructure, as well as export facilities, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, which PHMSA also regulates.
The bipartisan PIPES Act of 2020 significantly strengthened PHMSA’s jurisdiction related to the minimization of methane emissions across all of our regulated entities in an effort to improve public safety and protect our environment. Our efforts on this front include completing three major legacy pipeline safety rulemakings, each of which was more than a decade in the making, including new regulations on 400,000 miles of “gas gathering” pipelines—significantly increased by the fracking boom that began in the 2000s but remained unregulated at the Federal level until this past year. Since the enactment of the PIPES Act of 2020, Congress has added new incentives for infrastructure aimed at decarbonizing energy and industrial sectors. Both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act include significant incentives for the build-out of the hydrogen and carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) sectors. To address new risks—both safety and environmental—related to this infrastructure, PHMSA has focused on strengthening its regulations and improving its research in these areas.
On the other side of the agency, which focuses on hazardous materials transportation via other modes of transportation, the agency has focused on improving safety in the transportation of hydrogen and other cryogenic materials—via truck, train, plane, and vessel—which is seeing new technology development and investments from nearly every sector of the economy.
Also, since the enactment of the PIPES Act of 2020, PHMSA has worked with Congress to advance its first-ever infrastructure grant program, via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Safety and Modernization (NGDISM) Grant Program provides $1 billion spread over five years to improve the safety of high-risk, leak-prone legacy natural gas distribution infrastructure with a specific emphasis on benefiting underserved rural and urban communities, among other considerations. Eligible entities are municipality- or community-owned utilities, and funds are available to these entities seeking assistance in repairing, rehabilitating, or replacing high-risk, leak-prone natural gas distribution infrastructure. Funds may also be used to acquire equipment to assist in identifying and reducing natural gas distribution pipeline incidents and fatalities. This grant funding will help communities of all sizes make their infrastructure safer, create good jobs, reduce heat-trapping methane from the atmosphere, and reduce the risks of fatality and serious injury for residents and businesses. As of this hearing, we expect to announce the first round of these grants imminently.
Rulemaking
Our regulatory agenda over the past two years has been exceptionally full. PHMSA has been hard at work closing out years-long, and in some cases decade-long, efforts on final rules as well as initiating important new rulemakings from the 2020 PIPES Act.
Some of PHMSA’s recently completed final rules include the sibling rules to the Safety of Gas Transmission Pipelines final rule that we published in 2019, including improved regulation of higher-risk gas gathering pipelines; the 400,000 miles of additional pipelines previously mentioned; required reporting of safety information for all gas gathering pipelines; improved repair criteria for gas transmission pipelines; and other enhanced safety requirements for gas transmission pipelines regarding corrosion control, management of change, and inspections following extreme weather events.
Additionally, in April of 2022, PHMSA published the long-awaited final rule addressing rupture detection and rupture-mitigation valve installation for many gas transmission, hazardous liquid, and gas and hazardous liquid gathering pipelines, including carbon dioxide lines. Among other important provisions, this rule requires the installation of remote-control or automatic-shutoff valves, or equivalent technology, that can close within 30 minutes of an operator being notified of a potential rupture—saving lives and reducing methane emissions.
In response to Congress’ very stringent timeline for issuing a final rule for Coastal Ecological Unusually Sensitive Areas (90 days), PHMSA issued an Interim Final Rule to include additional coastal waters, the Great Lakes, and coastal beaches within the definition of an “unusually sensitive area” for the purposes of resilience and risk reduction through hazardous liquid pipeline integrity management—strengthening protections for these treasured natural environments.
PHMSA subsequently held a Liquid Pipeline Advisory Committee meeting on the rulemaking and emerged from that meeting with recommendations to help finalize this rule while addressing stakeholder concerns.
PHMSA has initiated several priority rulemakings that look to address important PIPES Act of 2020 mandates and emerging safety issues, including leak detection and leak repair, the safety of gas distribution pipelines (as directed in the Leonel Rondon Pipeline Safety Act), updated LNG facilities regulations, and an overhaul of the safety requirements for pipelines transporting carbon dioxide.
As required by Congress, PHMSA continues to update the Federal pipeline safety regulations (PSRs) to reflect new and revised voluntary consensus standards developed and adopted by standards-setting bodies (see e.g., PHMSA’s periodic standards update rulemakings). We understand how important updating and aligning standards can be to ensure the PSR include up- to-date standards that reflect current best practices and technologies—and to serve as a higher bar, from which the regulated community can continue to improve.
Finally, PHMSA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in October 2020 for Class Location Change Requirements. As you are aware, PHMSA is required by statute to hold advisory committee meetings on our proposed rules to solicit recommendations to ensure our rulemakings are reasonable, feasible, cost-effective, and practicable. These advisory committee meetings have helped derive consensus around highly technical regulatory policies. The PIPES Act of 2020 requires PHMSA to hold an advisory committee meeting on the NPRM for this rule. Based on the aggressive timelines and safety priorities included in the PIPES Act of 2020,
PHMSA is working to make efficient use of agency resources and advisory committee members’ time and anticipates holding an advisory committee meeting on the NPRM in conjunction with publishing the most important safety agenda items identified by Congress.
It is important to point out that rulemaking is designed to be an iterative process that encourages maximum participation by all stakeholders and rigorous analysis in support of decision making. This process helps ensure the promulgation of comprehensive rules that protect the public and the environment and meet our statutory requirement for rules with benefits that exceed their costs. PHMSA holds public meetings and workshops and conducts significant outreach prior to rulemakings, using the information gathered to establish a legal record and to strive to craft the most effective rules possible. Such collaboration, well in advance of the rulemaking process, allows PHMSA to identify concerns and potential solutions and to allocate its limited resources where they are needed most. In the past, these comprehensive efforts have also helped avoid expending additional resources on legal challenges.
In addition to congressionally mandated rules, many of PHMSA’s rulemakings underway address important recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board, resulting from safety issues identified during investigations in the aftermath of some tragic accidents. PHMSA’s rules also address recommendations from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the DOT Inspector General (DOT IG), and the agency’s own safety findings. When PHMSA proceeds with such rulemakings identified by independent sources, it must make sure that its regulations account for known safety issues, technological feasibility, and cost- effectiveness.
Increased litigation
With all the good work that is being done to advance pipeline safety by the promulgation of new rules, PHMSA also faces a new normal in terms of increased challenges to its rulemakings, resulting in longer development timelines and diversion of personnel resources to respond to legal challenges—which could otherwise be utilized to advance the myriad congressional directives and regulatory priorities of the agency and stakeholders.
PHMSA has also seen a dramatic increase in interest in its rulemakings pertaining to energy resources. By way of example, PHMSA’s LNG by Rail Suspension NPRM, issued in November 2021, has had over 7,000 comments—including a coordinated letter-writing campaign by environmental advocacy organizations and a letter signed by over 20 State Attorneys General, as well as many members of the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle.
Specifically, PHMSA has finalized four major rulemakings over the last year, and each of which has been the subject of judicial and/or administrative challenges. PHMSA currently faces pending litigation brought by pipeline industry trade groups on the Gas Gathering Final Rule, Valve Installation and Repair Final Rule, among others, from stakeholder groups and governments, across the spectrum.
PHMSA rulemaking resources are consequently spread thin. The same subject matter experts, attorneys, and economists who develop new PHMSA rules are also the ones who must help develop the briefs and arguments to respond to legal challenges after issuance.
Enforcement and Compliance
While PHMSA’s enforcement cases have remained relatively steady, we have set records for our proposed civil penalties in 2021 and again in 2022. These cases, many of which are still being adjudicated, include the worst carbon dioxide pipeline incident on record as well as a case related to the 2021 Colonial Pipeline cybersecurity incident. PHMSA continues to pursue 100% collections of the civil penalties it has imposed; however, some operators with smaller civil penalties have significantly delayed paying the penalties they owe.
In terms of forward-looking, potential rulemakings, the PSRs currently include emergency planning, response, and timely notification requirements for pipeline operators. However, incidents involving, for example, carbon dioxide pipelines as well as LNG facilities, do not necessarily require communications to communities who rightfully have an increased fear of these facilities after a safety incident occurs. PHMSA will look to its rulemaking authorities to help address the lack of post-incident communications but we also welcome congressional ideas in this space.
Another issue we’re examining involves the safety and performance of pipes manufactured outside of the U.S. Many larger operators deploy their own inspectors when utilizing foreign- made pipe in their projects—in order to ensure maximum safety and performance. However, when those U.S. companies find non-spec pipe (pipe not meeting Federal or industry standards), they may simply refuse to purchase it—which may result in another U.S. pipeline construction company ultimately purchasing or utilizing the same non-spec piping. On the hazardous materials side of our agency, PHMSA deploys inspectors across the globe to ensure products that are moving hazardous materials in the U.S. are inspected by U.S. inspectors. PHMSA is conducting analysis to better understand if non-spec foreign made pipes are being utilized in the U.S.
Research and Innovation
While PHMSA continues to advance pipeline safety by strengthening its regulations and enhancing its inspector training, inspections, and enforcement programs, many of the root causes of incidents are best addressed through research and technological innovation.
PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research Program works with academia, the regulated community, private research consortiums and federal partners to sponsor research and development (R&D) projects focused on providing near-term solutions for pipeline transportation infrastructure issues that will improve safety, reduce environmental impact, and enhance reliability.
Hydrogen/Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
In FY 2022, PHMSA awarded approximately $6 million in research investments on hydrogen projects. Specifically, under the Competitive Academic Agreement Program, PHMSA awarded two projects on pipeline infrastructure and modernization for hydrogen networks to two universities. These research opportunities expose students to the pipeline safety sector to encourage them to join the federal or state pipeline safety workforce or the private sector after graduation. PHMSA also leverages the University Transportation Centers Program to meet its research needs.
Also, in FY 2022, PHMSA awarded four projects related to hydrogen pipelines and storage, under our Core Research Program, totaling just over $2 million. These projects will research the safe transportation and storage of hydrogen via repurposing existing infrastructure used for natural gas transport and underground storage, improving hydrogen leak detection, and characterizing hydrogen-specific pipeline integrity threats.
PHMSA is collaborating with the Department of Energy (DOE) and other DOT modes on developing a Memorandum of Understanding to establish collaborative partnerships on R&D and safety associated with the transport of carbon dioxide and hydrogen via pipelines, rail, barge, ship, and truck.
Lastly, PHMSA announced last year new research topics to better determine impact areas for the safer operations of carbon dioxide pipelines. The results of this may help inform a current rulemaking related to carbon dioxide pipelines but congressional attention related to these issues is also welcome.
LNG
Recent global fluctuations in natural gas supplies as well as a transition from more carbon- intensive energy sources continue to spark investments in LNG. Currently, there are eight LNG export terminals with a total LNG production capacity of approximately 14 billion standard cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in the United States. There are also five LNG projects under construction, which will add an estimated 11.9 bcf/d in LNG production capacity. To that end PHMSA has funded 14 R&D LNG-safety-related research projects since 2007; with nine completed/closed and five currently active, all totaling $5.7 million.
Additionally, in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, Congress allocated up to $8.4 million to PHMSA for the creation of an LNG Center of Excellence aimed at positioning the United States as the leader and foremost expert in LNG operations—including safety and environmental performance. PHMSA has already initiated planning for the establishment of the Center which will enhance U.S. LNG operations and safety education and oversight and may result in LNG regulatory improvements. It will also serve as a repository of information and facilitate collaboration among stakeholders to enhance safety and environmental performance through research.
Funding for State Pipeline Safety Programs
Since 1970, when a national, uniform standard of pipeline safety regulations was published, states have had the authority, through PHMSA, to regulate the safety of intrastate pipelines. Under the authority of Sections 60105 and 60106 of Title 49 U.S. Code (49 U.S.C.) for state pipeline safety program certifications, states have been allowed to assume safety authority for the inspection and enforcement of intrastate pipelines. PHMSA sets the minimum Federal regulations for pipeline safety, which the participating states then adopt into their state code and enforce. States are allowed, under 49 U.S.C Section 60104(c), to adopt more stringent safety standards than the minimum standards PHMSA sets. This allows states to codify and enforce regulations that deal with specific, regional (or local) risks that might not be feasible or cost- beneficial to regulate at the Federal level. Many states have established safety regulations that are more stringent than the Federal regulations.
PHMSA relies on this extremely important partnership to accomplish its safety mission, which is to protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials that are essential to our daily lives. New pipeline safety regulations and new infrastructure (such as gas gathering lines) specific to state safety authority have and will continue to require state pipeline safety programs to increase staff—in order to handle the additional infrastructure oversight responsibilities. These state pipeline safety programs employ approximately 435 inspectors who are responsible for inspecting over 85 percent of the Nation’s pipeline infrastructure through certification with PHMSA.
The PIPES Act of 2020 allows PHMSA to pay not more than 80 percent of the total cost of the personnel, equipment, and activities reasonably required by the state agency for the conduct of its pipeline safety program during a given calendar year. This was changed from 50 percent in the 2006 PIPES Act. However, for fiscal years 2019 to 2021 State Base Grant federal funding covered less than 70 percent of the actual total state program costs. The actual federal funding is estimated to be approximately 60 percent of the state program’s total costs for fiscal year 2022. Unfortunately, current year 2023 federal funding is estimated to be only 56 percent of the total state program costs—due, in part, to increasing needs from states. This is another area where we welcome congressional ideas on how to support states and their vital role in implementing many of the new regulations previously discussed.
Control Room Management and Cyber Security
Not only is the industry facing expansion in the number of regulated pipeline miles and changes in product demand, both industry and regulators are addressing the growing threat of cyberattacks. PHMSA, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and DOE have a mutual interest in ensuring coordinated, consistent, and effective activities that improve transportation security. PHMSA’s safety oversight of pipeline control rooms forms a nexus with TSA’s cybersecurity oversight, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA’s) role as the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security, and DOE’s national energy management. The 2021 cyber-attack on Colonial Pipeline demonstrated how critical it is for a whole-of-government approach to safeguarding our Nation’s critical infrastructure—as well as collaboration with the private sector when it comes to planning and communications.
PHMSA is leveraging its authorities to inspect and enforce three components of pipeline operations including pipeline control room regulations, integrity management plan requirements, and emergency response plan regulations by incorporating cybersecurity questions in inspections that focus on considering cyber as a risk and having emergency response plans in place that consider the threat of cyberattacks as well as envision measures to mitigate impacts to operations. PHMSA has also engaged with CISA and TSA on cybersecurity exercises for pipeline operators.
To help advance our safety mission as it relates to cybersecurity, PHMSA is in the process of hiring pipeline and cybersecurity experts to assist in control room management inspections and provide cyber expertise support to PHMSA leadership. Cyber specialists can better identify pipeline infrastructure-related cyber risks, incidents, and significant issues that PHMSA currently lacks expertise in. This would help increase information sharing, create better understanding between agencies, and identify key issues between the nexus point of safety and security.
PHMSA is increasing cybersecurity training opportunities for its staff, as well as the staff of its state partners. By expanding the knowledge base of inspectors, we are better positioned to identify risks during routine control room inspections and coordinate when needed with colleagues in TSA.
PHMSA is also developing an adaptable emergency preparedness plan that will address the Agency’s response to all-threat, all-hazard, notice and no-notice incidents, including cybersecurity. As part of the process, PHMSA is developing an organizational framework to respond to those incidents, formal situational reporting internal and external to PHMSA, formal information sharing processes, and specific coordination methods between PHMSA, TSA, CISA, DOT Operating Administrations, DOE, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
OIG inspection, GAO audits, and NTSB recommendations
In terms of PHMSA’s compliance and inspection program, we recently underwent a DOT IG audit, which was initiated in May 2022, to review PHMSA’s implementation of its Integrated Inspection Program. Throughout the audit, the PHMSA team provided detailed overviews and walkthroughs of its Integrated Inspection Program, including, but not limited to planning, training, inspection conduct, and governing policies. PHMSA even organized and facilitated the OIG’s participation in several ongoing integrated inspections, and, at PHMSA’s invitation, OIG personnel attended the Office of Pipeline Safety’s annual inspection planning meeting in October 2022. The DOT IG provided helpful feedback and we consider the audit to have been beneficial to PHMSA’s continual improvement. PHMSA learned valuable lessons and received three DOT IG recommendations. We continue to have a constructive working relationship with the DOT IG, and the audit helped us to continue to move toward our common goal of advancing pipeline safety.
In August 2020, the GAO published a study finding Federal agencies have incorporated most but not all key collaboration practices in the permitting processes for export facilities for LNG. The GAO identified key practices for PHMSA, that can help sustain collaboration among federal agencies.
PHMSA’s team worked with GAO to adopt a process for conducting standards-specific reviews approximately every two to three years. The new process will ensure that a sufficient review is conducted and that PHMSA makes appropriate determinations about whether to update standards.
When it comes to our work with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), PHMSA is addressing recommendations that include requiring control room operators to notify emergency call centers in impacted communities when potential ruptures take place, equip control rooms with supervisory controls and data acquisition systems to pinpoint leaks along transmission lines, and amend Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to require automatic shutoff valves or remote-control valves at high consequence areas. We continue working to resolve any open recommendations—some of which we are constrained by resources and some by statutes—such as the congressional prohibition on applying the Automatic/Remote Shut Off Valve Rule to existing pipelines.
PHMSA continues to work with NTSB to address recommendations that have been made following other natural gas and hazardous liquid accidents. We collaborate with NTSB often, including opportunities for cross-training of our respective staff. We’ll continue to engage with NTSB as a partner in advancing safety.
All of these efforts are important because continual improvement is a key principle of safety management systems and high-reliability organizations, and one we embrace for both the agency and the industries we regulate.
Transparency, Equity, Environmental Justice, and Outreach to Underserved Communities
To both implement the President’s executive orders on equity (EO 13985 and EO 14008), as well as to help address historic inequities in the transportation system, PHMSA’s Office of Pipeline Safety has expanded its efforts to make public pipeline safety incidents and enforcement data (which was also recently the subject of a GAO report that lauded PHMSA’s transparency and encouraged further actions). Specifically, PHMSA has created a publicly available pilot, interactive mapping tool that allows users to view the location of pipeline incidents, as well as a geographic overlay with underserved communities.
When PHMSA first viewed the preliminary information from this tool, staff felt inspired to act— to help ensure all communities are receiving requisite safety protections. As part of this effort, PHMSA has engaged our state and federal partners, as well as stakeholders, to share our findings, and they, too, are engaging in dialogues with pipeline operators to ensure maintenance and safety measures do not leave underserved communities behind.
These communities are identified through U.S. Census and internal DOT/PHMSA data focused on underserved and transportation-disadvantaged communities that have experienced excavation damages, and other pipeline incidents and accidents.
PHMSA has also expanded its public outreach and education on pipeline awareness and safety as well as community-based excavation damage prevention initiatives to historically underserved and socioeconomically challenged geographic areas.
Increased Engagement with the Public
PHMSA is committed to enhancing all stakeholder engagement and has increased the number of public meetings and information briefings it hosts—holding four public meetings and information briefings so far in FY 2023, with additional public meetings and information briefings planned. Personally, I have visited community members and victims, on-site, where pipeline facilities have failed (e.g. Kalamazoo, MI; Bellingham, WA; Satartia, MS; and Freeport, TX).
PHMSA has also increased its engagement with public interest groups like the Pipeline Safety Trust, pipeline worker labor unions, and environmental groups, actively participating in conferences and meetings to hold a two-way dialogue on important pipeline safety issues, emphasizing that pipeline safety is a shared responsibility.
In November and December 2022, PHMSA partnered with the DOE in a series of Community Engagement Workshops on Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage and continues to serve as a resource regarding pipelines to DOE and the public. PHMSA has also supported requests from individuals and groups to participate in meetings to discuss CO2 pipeline projects to listen to concerns on safety, environmental justice, environmental impacts, and emergency response preparedness, as well as meet with representatives at the state legislature level. As previously noted, in May of 2022, I personally visited the community of Satartia, MS—about an hour northwest of Jackson—the site of one of the worst carbon dioxide pipeline incidents in history, in order to hear directly from the community and first responders that helped the community during that serious incident.
Similarly, just yesterday I visited with members of the community in and around Freeport, TX, which is home to the Freeport LNG facility. In June of 2022, an explosion at the facility resulted in a massive fireball and understandably left lasting concerns with the community. In February of this year, PHMSA, along with our co-regulators of LNG export facilities (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Coast Guard) held a town hall meeting in the community— with simultaneous bilingual translation—to help inform the surrounding community members of our work to investigate the incident and require changes needed to enhance safety at the facility.
In 2022, PHMSA’s Office of Pipeline Safety participated in nearly 220 public meetings, events, and conferences to educate our stakeholders on pipeline safety and damage prevention initiatives and to address questions about the Federal pipeline safety regulations or concerns about pipeline- related matters. PHMSA continues to promote the ‘Call 811 Program’ through participation in events as well as through social media and digital campaigns encouraging safe digging practices.
Efficiencies in Oversight, Taxpayer Stewardship, and Focus on Employees
Roughly 169 midstream oil and gas industry projects are expected to begin operations in the United States from 2021 to 2025, according to the Pipeline and Gas Journal. Over the last five years, liquid pipeline incidents have fallen by 21% while pipeline mileage and barrels delivered have increased by more than 27%. As previously noted, and to put it simply, our oversight responsibilities continue to grow both in terms of the types of facilities we regulate as well as the number of facilities we regulate: PHMSA has increasing responsibility for LNG facilities, underground natural gas storage, as well as natural gas gathering lines. PHMSA’s budget, excluding the new gas distribution grant program, does not grow at a rate commensurate with its responsibilities. Consequently, PHMSA has had to continuously operate relatively leaner as compared to our expanded universe of regulated facilities. To this end, PHMSA has also utilized advisory bulletins, public meetings, research solicitations, and increased collaboration with coregulators such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, the U.S. Coast Guard, and our state partners through collaboration with the National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives.
Hiring times at PHMSA have been reduced by 25% unfortunately – due in part to the pandemic – PHMSA was not spared the so-called great resignation, losing many individuals to both retirements and other departures. But PHMSAis exploring ways to continue to improve the agency’s hiring and recruitment to make it both more efficient and effective in recruiting and retaining talented applicants.
On the hiring, recruitment, and retention front, unfortunately—due in part to the pandemic— PHMSA was not spared the so-called great resignation, losing many individuals to both retirements and other departures.
To meet congressional directives to improve efforts to attract and retain pipeline engineers and inspectors, PHMSA has undertaken new recruitment and retention efforts—seeking approval from the Office of Personnel Management to increase special pay rates for some engineer inspectors—commensurate with similar federal special pay rates, developing new tuition reimbursement efforts, and utilizing new online recruitment methods. PHMSA is also utilizing the Department of Defense’s Operation Warfighter (OWF) program that matches qualified wounded, ill, and injured Service members with federal internships for veterans to gain valuable work experience during their recovery and rehabilitation—and create a pathway from the military to permanent employment. PHMSA has kept up with the PIPES Act of 2020 hiring mandates—both for inspectors as well as for regulatory personnel, that have helped lead the agency to some of its most productive years ever in terms of both finalizing regulations as well as enforcement actions and a reduction trend in hazardous materials and pipeline incidents.
PHMSA has also utilized technologies like iPads to eliminate paperwork for inspectors—which has resulted in more efficient use of inspectors’ time and increased the accuracy and standardization of inspections.
On an agency-wide basis, PHMSA has reduced or eliminated its use of nearly two dozen disparate software systems in favor of less costly, integrated systems. PHMSA is utilizing the cost savings of this nature to continue investing in more long-term, cost-saving programs.
Conclusion
In closing, I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to engage with you on the critical issues facing PHMSA and in turn facing a major component of the largest, most sophisticated energy transportation system in the world. And most importantly, I would like to emphasize my deep gratitude to the nearly 600 full-time federal employees and nearly 200 contractors that make up what I believe is the most unsung agency in the Federal Government. Congress has charged us with tremendous responsibilities—from ensuring the safe transportation of some of the most valuable goods that move in commerce, like satellites and spacecraft, as well as some of the most essential goods like fertilizer used on our farms, which can be transported by pipeline. As we take on ever greater oversight responsibilities with oversight of the build-out of carbon dioxide and hydrogen pipelines and other energy products of the future, PHMSA must either continue to grow our resources, or continue to reassess multiple and increasing priorities with the same amount of resources.
We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to improve pipeline and hazardous materials safety and to reduce associated environmental impacts.
Thank you again for inviting me here today. I look forward to your questions.
STATEMENT OF ANN C. PHILLIPS
MARITIME ADMINISTRATOR MARITIME ADMINISTRATION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HEARING ON “FISCAL YEAR 2024 BUDGET AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OCEAN SHIPPING REFORM ACT”
March 23, 2023
Good afternoon, Chairman Webster, Ranking Member Carbajal, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for your tremendous support for the Maritime Administration (MARAD), the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), and the U.S. maritime industry. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget, and how this request will enable MARAD to continue to advance key priorities in support of our economic and national security.
FY 2024 BUDGET REQUEST
MARAD’s mission is to foster, promote, and develop the maritime industry of the United States to meet the nation’s economic and security needs. The President’s FY 2024 Budget request of $980.2 million for MARAD will enable the agency to continue to strengthen our sealift enterprise by advancing recapitalization of the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) and the vital commercial sealift programs that support U.S.-flagged vessels operating in the foreign trade.
The President’s request will also support investments in our ports and waterways to improve supply chain resiliency and expand our efforts to address climate change. In FY 2024, the third tranche of funding—$450 million—provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to support the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) will be invested in new grants. The President’s budget requests an additional $230 million to support PIDP, which would bring the total amount of funding available in FY 2024 to $680 million and enable us to continue modernizing our ports to help reduce the costs of moving goods from ships to shelves and from American farmers and factories to destinations overseas.
In addition, the President’s request will enable MARAD to continue critical investments to address the urgent and long-standing challenges at the USMMA. Further, it will enable us to implement the many new authorities and responsibilities provided in the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY 2023 NDAA).
ECONOMIC AND CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY INVESTMENTS
The President’s FY 2024 budget requests $230 million for the PIDP to provide grants to improve port infrastructure and facilities and to stimulate economic growth in and around ports while also improving safety, addressing climate change and equity, and strengthening our supply chains. In addition to the funding requested in the budget, the BIL provides $450 million in advance appropriations for this program in FY 2024. Together, this funding would provide a $680 million investment for port infrastructure projects.
Last year, MARAD awarded more than $703 million in PIDP grants. This total included the first tranche of $450 million in funding provided by the BIL, approximately $234 million in FY 2022 appropriations, and unexpended funding from a prior PIDP round. The 2022 PIDP awards will fund 41 projects in 22 states and one territory. More than 60 percent of the PIDP awards made in 2022 benefit ports in historically disadvantaged communities. More than $150 million in the funding awarded last year focuses on port electrification to improve air quality, while nearly
$100 million of the awarded funding supports projects that will advance offshore wind farm developments.
This year, thanks again to the BIL and the funding provided in the FY 2023 appropriations measure, more than $662 million in funding is available for PIDP grants. The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for this program is open and applications are due on April 28, 2023.
The FY 2024 Budget also requests $11 million for the United States Marine Highway Program. Marine highways support our maritime supply chains and enable more cost-effective transportation options for U.S. shippers and manufacturers.
The FY 2023 NDAA made significant changes to this program, including renaming it from the “America’s Marine Highway Program” to the new “United States Marine Highway Program” and expanding the types of cargo that projects receiving funding under the program can support. The changes made by the FY 2023 NDAA are incorporated into this year’s NOFO for the United States Marine Highway Program, which is now open. There is $12.4 million in funding available and applications are due on April 28, 2023. Importantly, thanks to another change made in the FY 2023 NDAA, any eligible project along any of the 29 designated Marine Highway Routes—which encompass 41 states—is eligible to apply for funding.
In 2022, MARAD awarded nearly $39 million in marine highway projects. This unprecedented level of funding was made possible by the BIL, which provided a one-time infusion of $25 million to support the expansion of marine highways. The funding awarded last year will support 12 projects across the nation—and nearly all the funding is supporting projects in Historically Disadvantaged Communities or Federally designated community development zones.
The FY 2024 Budget also requests $20 million for MARAD’s Small Shipyards grants to support infrastructure improvements at qualified small U.S. shipyards to help improve their efficiency and ability to compete for domestic and international commercial ship construction and maintenance opportunities. Investing in shipbuilding supports job creation in a vital domestic industrial base. These grants can also be used to support the acquisition of equipment that reduces climate impacts and adapts technologies that reduce shipyard power consumption.
Within MARAD’s FY 2024 Budget request, $8.5 million will support the Maritime Environmental and Technical Assistance (META) program. The META program fulfills a niche in the Federal government by being specifically designed to assist stakeholders with innovation that supports a safe and efficient U.S. maritime transportation sector. Approximately 75 percent of the FY 2024 funding will be focused on efforts related to decarbonization of the maritime transportation sector.
The FY 2024 Budget request for MARAD includes $3 million for the Maritime Guaranteed Loan Program (Title XI) to provide the salaries and overhead support to manage the loan portfolio, currently at $1.5 billion in outstanding loan guarantees. This program is designed to manage loans that help to promote the U.S. shipyard industry by providing additional opportunities for vessel construction and modernization, including repowering, that may otherwise be unavailable to ship owners.
In June 2022, MARAD designated vessels constructed or reconstructed for use to support offshore wind facilities as Vessels of National Interest. This is the first time that this authority has been used since it was added to Title XI statute in 2019. With this designation, applications for projects qualifying as Vessels of National Interest have priority for review and funding.
Since this designation, there has been a significant increase in interest in the Title XI Program to support offshore wind vessels. The program has applications for seven projects under credit trustworthiness review, including five projects for Jones Act-qualified windfarm vessels.
The President’s FY 2024 Budget requests $6 million for MARAD’s Ship Disposal Program for support staff and overhead costs to continue to put primary emphasis on the disposal of the worst conditioned, non-retention vessels to mitigate environmental risks.
U.S. MERCHANT MARINE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
MARAD supports mariner training programs to produce highly skilled U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) credentialed officers for the U.S. merchant marine. Specifically, MARAD supports mariner education and training at USMMA, and it facilitates mariner education through the extensive support we provide to the six state maritime academies (SMA).
Graduates of USMMA are required to maintain their licenses for 6 years and to sail on commercial vessels or serve in other capacities—such as on active duty in U.S. uniformed services—for 5 years. USMMA is also the principal source of new officers for the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Sealift Officer (SSO) Program, which maintains a cadre of approximately 2,000 U.S. Naval Reserve Officers with the training and credentials to operate strategic sealift resources at times of national need.
Funding will support academic operating expenses for approximately 975 midshipmen and 292 faculty and support staff, including expanded support for the extensive facility maintenance and repair needs of the Academy’s aging physical plant and for our work implementing the Every Mariner Builds A Respectful Culture (EMBARC) program.
MARAD established the EMBARC program in December 2021 to help prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment during the Sea Year program, to support survivors, strengthen a culture of accountability, and improve safety for all mariners. Vessel operators enroll in the EMBARC program before USMMA cadets can train on an operator’s vessels.
Now, thanks to the FY 2023 NDAA, commercially operated vessels must comply with standards set by MARAD regarding the prevention of, and response to, sexual assault and harassment before they can train USMMA cadets. In addition, the FY 2023 NDAA authorized the Secretary of Transportation to establish a Sexual Assault Advisory Council to review existing policies and make recommendations for improvements to build on our efforts to strengthen prevention of sexual assault and sexual harassment on campus and during Sea Year and ensure appropriate responses when such incidents occur.
Further, the FY 2023 NDAA gave MARAD the authority to withhold payments from companies participating in the Maritime Security Program (MSP), Cable Ship Security Program (CSP), and Tanker Security Program (TSP) if they do not comply with the policies and requirements established by MARAD for the protection of cadets from sexual assault and sexual harassment. MARAD is working as quickly as possible to develop a proposed EMBARC rule pursuant to the authority provided by the FY 2023 NDAA.
In addition, the FY 2023 NDAA requires that ocean-going vessels include sexual assault and sexual harassment response policies in their Safety Management Systems (SMS)—which has been a central tenet of EMBARC. In short, the FY 2023 NDAA reinforces a long overdue change in shipboard culture that will promote fair and equitable treatment of all mariners and contribute to a safer working environment.
Today, there are 16 commercial operators enrolled in EMBARC; together, they operate more than 140 vessels. All vessel operators that are required to carry USMMA cadets under section 46 U.S.C. § 51307(b)—i.e., operators with vessels enrolled in the MSP and the CSP—have enrolled in EMBARC. Companies that enroll vessels in the new Tanker Security Fleet will be required to have completed enrollment in EMBARC as a condition of enrolling in the TSP.
Thanks to the incredible support provided by the Military Sealift Command, the Navy, and the USCG, the Midshipmen in the USMMA Class of 2023 have accrued the sea time needed to qualify to take their licensing exams on time and to graduate on time.
Of the funding requested in the FY 2024 Budget for USMMA, $92 million would support emergency and recurring maintenance and repair activities on campus as well as major investments in aging facilities and infrastructure at USMMA.
The Biden-Harris Administration has long recognized the urgent need to rehabilitate and replace existing infrastructure and to significantly strengthen the ability of MARAD and USMMA to plan and manage capital investments and major maintenance efforts. Working closely with leaders and experts from the Department of Transportation (DOT), MARAD has implemented numerous measures to improve our ability to manage capital projects. Consistent with a recommendation from the National Academy of Public Administration, MARAD/USMMA created a new director position that is staffed with a Senior Executive to oversee all capital and maintenance projects at USMMA. MARAD and the DOT have also created new oversight bodies to ensure that investments of taxpayer funds are properly managed and yield completed projects that address the Academy’s most urgent needs.
Late last year, MARAD provided to the Committees on Appropriations and made public USMMA’s Fiscal Year 2022 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The Fiscal Year 2022 CIP explains significant changes made to active and out-year projects since USMMA’s last CIP report, which was provided in FY 2019. These changes are based on demonstrated need as well as the principles that guide our prioritization of capital and maintenance projects. Specifically, our highest priorities for capital and maintenance investments are supporting the safety, health, and well-being of Midshipmen and supporting the Academy’s academic mission.
In December 2022, the USMMA awarded a campuswide maintenance contract, which fulfills another key recommendation from the National Academy of Public Administration. The contract has a $42 million ceiling over the next 5 years and will help address the significant maintenance backlog. Part of the funding requested for FY 2024 will enable us to implement task orders under the campuswide maintenance contract to address routine maintenance on a scheduled basis and help reduce the incidence of emergency repairs.
Capital improvement funds requested in FY 2024 would enable us to replace USMMA’s existing storm water management systems, which date back to the 1940s and are broken beyond repair.
Funding would also enable us to replace the seawall, which can no longer meet projected storm surges and anticipated rises in sea level.
The FY 2024 Budget request also includes $53.4 million to provide support to the six SMAs. This request includes funding for vessel management, logistics, and maintenance oversight to prepare the schools to receive and operate the National Security Multi-Mission Vessels (NSMV).
Funding would also be available to address unanticipated increases in steel costs for the NSMVs, and support pier improvements at SMAs necessary to enable heavy weather mooring of the NSMVs. MARAD has concluded a cooperative agreement with the State University of New York Maritime College under which MARAD will cover 80 percent of the costs of their eligible pier upgrades up to just over $18 million.
Funding would also meet maintenance and repair costs to maintain the legacy school ships and continue our direct support to the SMAs.
There are now four NSMVs under construction. The first ship—the EMPIRE STATE—is already launched and we anticipate taking delivery of the ship in June of this year.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Providing sealift to meet the nation’s needs is a critical part of MARAD’s mission, and we have proudly met the challenges of managing the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) for 77 years. America’s strategic sealift provides the Nation with the capability to rapidly project power globally by deploying Department of Defense (DOD) forces and moving cargoes worldwide during peacetime and wartime—including through contested environments— whenever activated by the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM).
Our Government-owned sealift fleet is supported and leveraged by a fleet of privately owned, commercially operated U.S.-flag vessels in the MSP, CSP, and the new TSP.
The FY 2024 Budget requests the full authorization level of $318 million for the MSP, which is the heart of sustainment sealift. In return for a stipend, MSP operators provide the DOD with assured access to their ships and their global networks of critical capabilities, including intermodal facilities used to unload and transport military cargoes to final destinations.
There are 60 commercially viable, militarily useful vessels enrolled in MSP. These vessels are active in international trade and are on-call to meet the nation’s need for sustained military sealift capacity. The MSP supports and sustains the merchant mariner base by providing employment for 2,400 highly trained, skilled U.S. merchant mariners who may also crew the U.S. Government-owned surge sealift fleet when activated. The MSP also supports more than 5,000 additional shore-side maritime industry jobs.
In addition, the President’s budget requests $60 million for the TSP. A study required by the FY 2020 NDAA found a substantial risk to the nation associated with heavy reliance on foreign- flagged tankers, particularly in a contested environment. The TSP will be comprised of active, commercially viable, militarily useful, privately owned product tank vessels. I am pleased to report that at the end of last year, MARAD issued the updated Voluntary Tanker Agreement and an Interim Final Rule. The application period closed on February 17, 2023, and we anticipate announcing the first 10 ships selected for enrollment in the near term.
As you know, last year, I testified before this Subcommittee regarding our cargo preference programs. As I said then, put simply, without cargoes, ships will leave the U.S. flag, our modest fleet will continue to dwindle to the point that the number of American vessels is simply too small to meet government shipper agency requirements whether military or civilian. We are working with the Biden-Harris Administration’s Made In America Office to help agencies understand cargo preference requirements. In addition, consistent with my testimony, I have written to all Federal departments and agencies explaining how MARAD can help them ensure they meet their obligations under cargo preference laws and regulations.
MARAD is working diligently on revisions to the cargo preference regulations as required by the Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA.
One of the current challenges with meeting cargo preference requirements is ensuring we have both enough vessels and the wide mix of vessel types to carry the many types of cargoes that the government impels. To help attract additional vessels to our flag, the Biden-Harris Administration proposed that Congress eliminate the 3-year period that vessels entering the U.S. flag must currently wait before they are eligible to carry civilian agency preference cargoes.
This would ensure that vessels that choose to sail under the U.S.-flag can carry preference cargoes as soon as they enter the flag, as well as provide the opportunity to diversify the types of vessels available to civilian agencies to carry cargoes. In return, once under the U.S. flag, the vessels would be restricted from flagging out for 3 years. This proposal, however, was not adopted by the prior Congress.
The President’s FY 2024 Budget requests $809.6 million from DOD budgetary authority for MARAD to acquire, upgrade, and maintain vessels in the NDRF and RRF. Funds will ensure MARAD’s ability to maintain the fleet in a ready, reliable, and responsive condition to meet strategic sealift for the U.S. Armed Forces, and humanitarian support when called upon during national emergencies, as well as maintain MARAD’s NDRF fleet mooring sites.
MARAD’s RRF consists of sealift ships providing a mix of capabilities. RRF ships, along with a smaller number of Military Sealift Command vessels, provide sealift surge capability to deliver DOD equipment and supplies where needed during the initial stages of a response to a major contingency. Today, the RRF is a fleet of 45 vessels, with an average age of more than 45 years, maintained in a reduced operating status to be ready to sail within five days of activation. The fleet will grow to 51 vessels after the transfer of additional surge sealift and prepositioning vessels from the Military Sealift Command is complete by the end of FY 2025.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated difficulties in maintaining ship and even mariner readiness. As part of the Navy’s overall plan for sealift recapitalization, MARAD is responsible for maintaining the existing RRF ships through the recapitalization period, including dozens of ships that are nearly 50 years old or even older. Continued focus on safety, material condition, and regulatory compliance have been difficult to sustain, and challenges have been compounded by equipment and parts delays, and the increased scope of the repairs we have had to undertake, including steelwork.
MARAD is working to advance the urgent recapitalization of the RRF. In March 2022—and for the first time in nearly 30 years—we announced the purchase of two vessels. These two ships, the former HONOR and FREEDOM, joined the RRF as the CAPE ARUNDEL and CAPE CORTES, adding more than 432,000 square feet of total sealift capacity and 316,000 square feet of military cargo capacity. Both of these vessels participated in the MSP, and while differences in marine safety regimens have slowed progress towards certification, the ships will be upgraded in U.S. shipyards to add additional capabilities in summer 2023 as planned.
On January 27, 2023, the DOD transmitted the next proposed ship purchase decision to Congress for the required 30-day notification period. Without any noted concerns, the three ships will be purchased and placed under U.S. government ownership starting in April 2023 and continuing into summer 2023.
In the FY 2023 NDAA, MARAD was directed to develop a Roll-On/Roll-Off ship design for the construction of 10 new vessels for the NDRF to begin construction in 2024. In response to this directive, the RRF program is documenting the necessary actions to rapidly implement a limited shipbuilding program. Modeled after the NSMV program, this shipbuilding effort would leverage commercial practices and utilize a Vessel Construction Manager to speed deliveries. At this time, MARAD activity is limited to developing the implementation plan and the requirements for a concept design for new construction.
CONCLUSION
These programs represent MARAD’s priorities that are supported by the President’s Budget. We will continue to keep you apprised of the progress of our program activities and initiatives in these areas in the coming year.
Thank you for the opportunity to present and discuss the President’s Budget for MARAD. I appreciate the Subcommittee’s continuing support for maritime programs, and I look forward to any questions you and the members of the Subcommittee may have.
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STATEMENT OF ANN C. PHILLIPS MARITIME ADMINISTRATOR MARITIME ADMINISTRATION U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HEARING ON “SHORTAGE OF U.S. MARINERS AND RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION IN THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD”
May 11, 2023
Good morning, Chairman Webster, Ranking Member Carbajal, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for your tremendous support for the Maritime Administration (MARAD) and thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the availability of U.S. mariners needed to meet our Nation’s sealift requirements.
MARINER READINESS
MARAD’s mission is to foster, promote, and develop the maritime industry of the United States to meet the nation’s economic and security needs. MARAD administers the Federal programs that support commercial sealift vessels, and we own and maintain the nearly 50 vessels comprising the Ready Reserve Force (RRF). We also have an extensive role supporting mariner education in the U.S.—and particularly the education and training of individuals working to earn unlimited tonnage licenses.
A study prepared by the Maritime Workforce Working Group and released by MARAD in 2017 found that the U.S. did not have enough mariners with unlimited tonnage credentials to sustain a full activation of the RRF and our commercially operated vessels to meet sealift needs.
Specifically, the 2017 analysis determined that, at that time, concurrent operations of the commercially operated U.S.-flagged fleet and sustained military sealift operations would require 13,607 U.S. mariners with unlimited credentials. In 2017, the estimated pool of actively sailing mariners was comprised of 11,768 sealift qualified mariners—documenting a deficit of 1,839 mariners. This optimistic scenario assumed that all qualified mariners would be both available and willing to sail as needed.
During the six years since the 2017 study was released, globally standardized credentialing requirements have had an impact on the U.S. Merchant Marine. And of course, the maritime industry—like many other industries—has also been profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these developments have negatively impacted mariner retention.
Mariner credentials are issued by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), but USCG information technology systems are not currently structured to provide granular details regarding the pool of sealift qualified U.S. mariners. That said, ascertaining the true size of the U.S. mariner pool that could be activated in an emergency would require knowing not only the number of U.S. mariners with valid unlimited tonnage credentials but also the number from among that pool who would be available and willing to serve, particularly in a contested environment.
STATUS OF THE U.S.-FLAGGED FLEET
Requirements for sealift qualified mariners are a function of the size of the U.S.-flagged fleet, which also determines the number and type of job opportunities available to mariners.
Pursuant to 46 U.S.C. § 50101, the United States is to have a merchant marine that is “sufficient to carry the waterborne domestic commerce and a substantial part of the waterborne export and import foreign commerce of the United States and to provide shipping service essential for maintaining the flow of the waterborne domestic and foreign commerce at all times.”
The domestic commerce of the United States—that is, commerce between two points in the U.S.—is carried on U.S.-flagged, coastwise qualified vessels, typically known as “Jones Act qualified” vessels. Data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the 2021 calendar year show that there were nearly 45,000 vessels of all types in the Jones Act trade at that time. A study completed in 2019 by PriceWaterhouse Coopers for the Transportation Institute concluded that the Jones Act supported nearly 650,000 jobs and contributed more than $72 billion to our nation’s Gross Domestic Product. U.S.-flag vessels provide well-paying, high-quality jobs for
U.S. mariners.
Presently, MARAD estimates that we carry less than 2% of our import/export waterborne foreign commerce on U.S.-flagged vessels. The U.S.-flagged fleet moving import/export waterborne commerce in the foreign trade is comprised of just 85 vessels. Sixty of these vessels participate in the Maritime Security Program (MSP) and two participate in the Cable Security Fleet Program (CSP), which provide payments to vessel operators in return for vessel availability to meet government needs. Ten vessels will eventually be enrolled in the new Tanker Security Program (TSP) that MARAD is implementing pursuant to Congressional authorization and appropriations.
Full activation of the sealift fleet would involve our U.S.-flagged commercially operated fleet sailing internationally, larger oceangoing Jones Act vessels requiring mariners with unlimited tonnage credentials, vessels operated by the Military Sealift Command, and the nearly 50 vessels comprising MARAD’s RRF. All of these vessels draw crewmembers from the same constrained pool of sealift qualified mariners.
MARAD INITIATIVES TO SUPPORT MARINER EDUCATION & TRAINING
In September 2022, I convened a forum attended by more than 75 industry stakeholders to discuss mariner workforce challenges. Among many issues, we discussed the fact that providing better work/life balance to today’s merchant mariners—comparable to the quality of work life in other sectors of the economy—is essential.
We also discussed how critical it is to growing our mariner workforce and to recruiting and retaining the next generation of mariners to ensure that all mariners are treated with respect and dignity and are guaranteed safe workplaces. Every mariner must have the opportunity to succeed and advance on the basis of their skills and professionalism, and we must ensure that our U.S. Merchant Marine reflects the values and diversity of the nation it serves. I thank this Committee and the entire Congress for supporting ongoing efforts to strengthen safety in the maritime industry.
In recent months, I have had the opportunity to discuss many proposals developed by all corners of the maritime industry to help expand recruitment and to support the retention of mariners, and I appreciate industry’s many efforts in this regard. Fundamentally, addressing our nation’s mariner needs requires a whole-of-government effort paired with multi-faceted industry initiatives. As part of that collaboration, MARAD is implementing numerous programs and policies to strengthen the mariner workforce.
U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
MARAD operates the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), located at Kings Point, New York. The Academy graduates just over 200 students annually who have earned their Bachelor of Science degrees, USCG merchant mariner licenses with officer endorsements, and commissions in the U.S. Armed Forces reserves. The USMMA is the primary source of licensed mariners with service obligations.
Recognizing the urgent need to address the many long-standing and systemic challenges at the Academy, under the Biden-Harris Administration, MARAD and USMMA have been working to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment and to advance culture change to improve safety for USMMA Midshipmen and indeed for all mariners. In November 2021, MARAD/USMMA briefly paused USMMA’s Sea Year training so that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), MARAD, and USMMA could strengthen policies and procedures to help prevent sexual assault and harassment, improve the support provided to survivors, and support a culture of accountability at sea. In December 2021, MARAD introduced the “Every Mariner Builds a Respectful Culture” (EMBARC) program, which enumerates sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention and response procedures that commercial carriers agree to before MARAD permits them to carry USMMA cadets on their ships.
To strengthen MARAD’s oversight of the EMBARC program, MARAD established and is staffing the MARAD Office of Cadet Training At-Sea Safety within the office of the Deputy Associate Administrator for Maritime Education and Training. The new Director of the office joined MARAD in August 2022, and three other staff have subsequently joined the office. This office manages EMBARC enrollments and compliance reviews. Training of the initial audit team has been completed and fourteen enrolled vessels have already been assessed by the team to ensure their compliance with the EMBARC standards.
At the USMMA, additional efforts are underway to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment and to improve safety both at sea and on the campus. For example, to strengthen the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response office, the Academy has added a new GS-15 Director position in the office. Using direct hire authority provided in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (Pub. L. 117-81), USMMA has filled the position with a new employee who reported to the Academy in September 2022.
Thanks to the FY 2023 NDAA, commercially operated vessels must comply with standards set by MARAD regarding the prevention of, and response to, sexual assault and harassment before they can train USMMA cadets. Further, the FY 2023 NDAA gave MARAD the authority to withhold payments from companies participating in the MSP, CSP, and TSP if they are not enrolled in—and operating in compliance with—EMBARC. MARAD is working as quickly as possible to implement an EMBARC rule pursuant to the authority provided by the FY 2023 NDAA.
In addition, the FY 2023 NDAA requires that certain ocean-going vessels include sexual assault and sexual harassment response policies in their Safety Management Systems—which has been a central tenet of EMBARC. In short, the FY 2023 NDAA reinforces a long overdue change in shipboard culture that will promote fair and equitable treatment of all mariners and contribute to a safer working environment.
At the same time, we recognize that there is more we must do to eliminate sexual assault and sexual harassment at the USMMA, and in the merchant marine generally. Last year, the Department of Transportation proposed the creation of an Independent Review Commission on the Prevention of, and Response to, Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment and Related Offenses, modeled on a recent DOD advisory body that made recommendations related to accountability, prevention, climate and culture, and victim care and support. While Congress did not take up that proposal, we intend to ask the USMMA Advisory Council required by the FY22 NDAA to make recommendations on sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention and response one of its core mandates.
MARAD has also been working to rehabilitate and replace existing infrastructure at USMMA’s campus and to strengthen significantly USMMA’s ability to plan and manage capital investments and major maintenance efforts. Consistent with recommendations from the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), MARAD created and staffed a new Senior Executive Service position to lead facilities investments at the Academy and is reorganizing the infrastructure and maintenance management organization at the Academy. MARAD and the DOT have also created new oversight bodies to ensure that investments of taxpayer funds are properly managed, and yield completed projects that address the Academy’s most urgent needs. In late 2022, MARAD/USMMA released a Capital Improvement Program that prioritizes planned capital investments to address the immediate health and safety needs of the Academy’s midshipmen and to support re-accreditation of the Academy.
Support to State Maritime Academies
The six State Maritime Academies (SMAs) are located in California, Michigan, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas. MARAD administers extensive Federal programs that support the SMAs, including providing a MARAD-owned and maintained training vessel to each school, as well as limited direct funding and some additional financial assistance to partially offset the cost of fuel used by the training vessels.
Since FY 2018, Congress has appropriated a total of $1.61 billion towards the re-capitalization of the MARAD training ship fleet. With this funding, MARAD is building five National Security Multi-mission Vessels (NSMV), which will provide state-of-the-art training platforms that ensure the U.S. continues to set the world standard in maritime training.
The ships—which the Secretary of Transportation has designated as the State class—are designed with dedicated training spaces, including classrooms, a training bridge, lab spaces, and an auditorium. Each NSMV has space to embark up to 600 cadets, maximizing the capability of the ship and its mission to provide students with a world-class education. Delivery of the first NSMV—the EMPIRE STATE—will occur this summer, and by 2026, one NSMV will be provided to each SMA except the Great Lakes Maritime Academy.
I thank the SMAs for their ongoing support of initiatives to strengthen safety at sea. I note that all SMAs have confirmed they will not place their students on any vessels operated by companies that are eligible to enroll in EMBARC unless the companies are enrolled. I also appreciate the SMAs’ ongoing work to develop policies and procedures modeled on EMBARC to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment on small, regional commercial vessel operators on which they rely to train SMA students. Such vessel operators are not able to comply with all elements of EMBARC, which is designed to apply to operators of large, ocean-going vessels.
Finally, I note that prior to the placement of an NSMV at an SMA, each SMA will be required to enter into a new Memorandum of Agreement with MARAD that enumerates the terms and conditions governing the operation of the MARAD-owned vessels, including a set of policies that adapt EMBARC for application on board training ships.
Centers of Excellence
The FY 2018 NDAA authorized the Secretary of Transportation to designate Centers of Excellence for Domestic Maritime Workforce Training and Education (CoE). Pursuant to this authority, MARAD developed, and the Secretary approved, a voluntary program, which includes an application process, to identify and recommend qualified and eligible entities for CoE designation. A CoE designation is the first step in strengthening a nationwide partnership of academic centers focused on advancing the goals and efforts of the maritime industry
Twenty-seven facilities were designated as CoEs in May 2021. Designees included accredited community colleges, technical colleges, a shipyard apprenticeship program, and maritime training centers under State supervision. The CoEs help provide outreach to diverse communities around the Nation and expand awareness of the maritime industry, including the U.S. Merchant Marine.
Growing the U.S.-Flagged Fleet
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, MARAD is administering statutorily authorized initiatives that are growing the U.S.-flagged fleet and creating new job opportunities for American mariners with unlimited tonnage credentials. In 2021, MARAD stood up the Cable Security Fleet Program, which brought two cable laying vessels under the U.S. flag. In December 2022, MARAD issued the updated Voluntary Tanker Agreement and an Interim Final Rule to create the new TSP. The application period closed on February 17, 2023, and we anticipate announcing the first 10 ships selected for enrollment in the near term. The TSP initiative will create new employment opportunities for approximately 500 U.S. mariners.
MARAD is also continuing our work to support effective implementation of cargo preference requirements. We are working with the Biden-Harris Administration’s Made In America Office to help agencies understand and meet cargo preference requirements. In addition, consistent with my prior testimony before this Subcommittee, I have written to all federal departments and agencies explaining how MARAD can help them ensure they meet their obligations under cargo preference laws and regulations.
MARAD is working diligently on revisions to the cargo preference regulations as required by the FY 2023 NDAA. As part of that effort, and also consistent with my testimony before the Subcommittee last year, on March 1, MARAD published a Request for Information in the Federal Register asking members of the public to provide information on their experiences with cargo preference. We will use the input we receive to inform our work on the rule revisions as well as our continued interagency dialogue.
One of the current challenges with meeting cargo preference requirements is ensuring we have both enough vessels and the wide mix of vessel types to carry the many types of cargoes that the government impels. To help attract additional vessels to our flag, in 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration proposed that the prior Congress eliminate the 3-year period that vessels entering the U.S. flag must currently wait before they are eligible to carry civilian agency preference cargoes. Although implementation of this proposal would have no cost to the government, it was not adopted.
CONCLUSION
Ensuring that we have a robust pool of mariners with unlimited tonnage credentials to provide the sealift capacity to meet the military’s needs and to support our economic success is a critical priority for MARAD—particularly given the evolving threats in what the National Security Strategy has identified as a “decisive decade.” Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this issue today and I look forward to answering your questions.
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Testimony of Carol A. (“Annie”) Petsonk Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Aviation and International Affairs
Before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade and Export Promotion
June 13, 2023
“Oversight and Implementation of Travel and Tourism Legislation.”
Chair Rosen, Ranking Member Budd, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to talk about the Department of Transportation’s support of travel and tourism infrastructure and about our progress on the National Travel and Tourism Infrastructure Strategic Plan. Thank you also for your support of U.S. travel and tourism.
My name is Annie Petsonk. I am the Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs at the Department of Transportation. In addition to travel and tourism, my office carries a broad portfolio of responsibilities, including the economic regulatory aspects of domestic and international aviation, the Department’s engagement in international transportation and trade, and a range of other international cooperation and facilitation issues.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or BIL, makes historic investments in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness, with meaningful benefits for travel and tourism infrastructure across all 50 states, U.S. territories, and tribal communities. Across the country, we have already begun improvement on 3,700 bridges and almost 70,000 miles of roads and highways; and we have funded over 1,000 zero-emission buses and awarded over $233 million in grants to improve and modernize vital intercity passenger rail service across the country. The FAA has also announced nearly $2 billion in BIL funding that will go to 175 airports across the country to improve terminals of all sizes, expand capacity, and provide greater accessibility.
Fortunately, travel and tourism are on a path to recovery. Memorial Day weekend saw the highest volume of air passenger travel since any time before COVID, and cancellations remained under one-percent. We are also seeing increases in highway, bus, and train travel over last year as well as a 50 percent increase in cruise bookings over 2022. We fully recognize that some segments of the U.S. travel market have already recovered from the recent pandemic, while other market segments, such as business and international inbound travel, have not yet returned to pre- pandemic levels.
I come from a small town, Altoona, Pennsylvania, whose major tourist attractions, from the railroad’s world-famous Horseshoe Curve to our beautiful mountains and rivers, form a vital part of the warp and weft of our local economy. I have had the good fortune to spend magical time in National Parks and spectacular settings in each of the states that are represented on this sub- committee, including a great week in Las Vegas when my brother competed in the World Barbershop Harmony Society Championships. So, I know from personal experience the importance of tourism in connecting communities and driving thriving economies. That is why I am grateful for the opportunity to play a role in implementing aspects of the BIL that will help grow tourism in the United States.
The Department is a member of the Department of Commerce-led Tourism Policy Council, charged with leading the whole of government effort to ensure that the national interest in travel and tourism is fully considered in federal decision-making. And through our participation in the Tourism Policy Council, we supported the Department of Commerce’s development of the 2022 National Travel and Tourism Strategy. I would particularly like to thank Chair Rosen for your leadership on the travel and tourism related provisions of the BIL including Section 25018 which requires the Department to update the National Travel and Tourism Infrastructure Strategic Plan.
Earlier this year, we established a department-wide Travel and Tourism Steering Committee. We also appointed the Director of the Office of International Transportation and Trade, a senior executive on my team, as DOT’s Chief Travel and Tourism Officer. Her office is working closely with the DOT Travel and Tourism Steering Committee on the drafting of the National Travel and Tourism Infrastructure Strategic Plan. On June 2, 2023, the Department also published a Request for Comment, seeking to gather input on a variety of matters including data available to inform the Strategic Plan. Our goal is to complete the new National Travel and Tourism Infrastructure Strategic Plan as expeditiously as possible this year.
My office is also responsible for the economic side of aviation policy – both domestically and internationally. Our efforts are aimed at facilitating the substantial economic contributions that civil aviation makes to the US economy, including for tourism.
Domestically, the Essential Air Service Program and Small Community Air Service Development Program help connect smaller and rural communities in the United States to the national air transportation system, ensuring residents can pursue business and tourism opportunities through their hub airport or airports, have access to medical care and educational opportunities, and visit family and friends.
Internationally, my office is the primary arm within the Department of Transportation for the development of international aviation policy and implementation of the U.S. Open Skies policy in order to promote competition and create options for travelers, airlines, working people, and shippers while advancing strong labor standards here and abroad. We have over 130 Open Skies partners around the word and, in the last few months, have added Mongolia, Angola and Moldova to that number.
The Department of Transportation looks forward to continuing to work with the Subcommittee to ensure that America’s travel and tourism sectors remain vibrant and valued. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Testimony of Shailen Bhatt
Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration
U.S. Department of Transportation
Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
June 14, 2023
Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, otherwise known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law represents a once-in-a-generation investment in our Nation’s infrastructure, competitiveness, communities, and resilience to climate change, and the Inflation Reduction Act provides historic investments and new opportunities to build a clean energy economy that creates good jobs and lowers costs for working families. The FHWA is working tirelessly to implement these laws so that we can deliver on the promise of these historic investments. Safety is the FHWA’s number-one priority, and it underpins all of the work we do as we implement the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. I have always said that a transportation agency exists for two reasons: to save lives and to make people’s lives better. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 42,795 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2022. Almost 95 percent of people who die using our Nation’s transportation networks are killed on our streets, roads, and highways. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides resources to change this paradigm, and we are working to make these resources available to recipients as quickly as possible. At the FHWA, our mission is to deliver a world-class transportation system that advances safe, efficient, equitable, and sustainable mobility choices for all while strengthening our Nation’s economy. Our mission begins and ends with safety. The FHWA is actively implementing the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) National Roadway Safety Strategy and is committed to applying the Safe System Approach to reach our goal of zero roadway deaths and serious injuries. In addition to our commitment to safety, our work is guided by an initiative we refer to as “DRIVEN for the 21st Century.” There are six aspects to this initiative: Delivery, Resilience, Innovation, Values, Equity, and our Nation. This initiative will help the FHWA accomplish the U.S. DOT’s goal of delivering results and our work across the U.S. DOT’s three major areas of effort: building good things well; running our operations well in the agency; and protecting the safety and wellbeing of everyone who interacts with our transportation system. Each of the six aspects of the DRIVEN initiative guide our efforts to implement the many programs and funding opportunities authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
DELIVERY
Delivery is the first aspect of DRIVEN, and it was inspired by Secretary Buttigieg, who noted that U.S. DOT’s focus for 2023 is prioritizing delivery of results. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, we have the funding necessary to make major improvements in our transportation system. The FHWA has been working diligently to implement this historic legislation, and we have taken numerous actions that will support implementation of projects that improve safety and people’s lives.
Since the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we have distributed more than $120 billion in highway formula funding to States, including funding for bridges, electric vehicles, and to make our infrastructure more resilient to climate change. This funding includes money for programs like the Highway Safety Improvement Program, which is designed to achieve a significant reduction in traffic fatalities and serious injuries for all road users on all public roads, including non-State-owned roads and roads on Tribal lands. These Highway Safety Improvement Program funds supported more than 5,300 projects. HSIP funds improved 4,515 intersections and 69,075 miles of roadway. The FHWA has issued Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for approximately $4.6 billion in available funds under ten Bipartisan Infrastructure Law discretionary grant programs and we are administering nearly 900 awards (grants and cooperative agreements) totaling approximately $7.5 billion across 9 discretionary programs, including the Office of the Secretary’s Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant Program and the Bridge Investment Program. The SS4A Grant Program provides funding to develop the tools to help strengthen a community’s approach to roadway safety and save lives.
Diverse local, Tribal, and regional communities that differ dramatically in size and location will have greater access to Federal funds to improve road safety while helping to meet equity and climate challenges. Funding for the Tribal Transportation Program Safety Fund more than doubled in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In February 2023, the FHWA announced the award of approximately $21 million in FY 2022 Tribal Transportation Program Safety Fund funds to 70 Tribes for 93 projects that improve safety on Tribal lands. In April 2023, the FHWA issued a NOFO making up to $111.85 million from FY 2022 and 2023 funding available for the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. The primary goals of this program are to save lives, prevent serious injuries, protect motorists and wildlife by reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, and improve habitat connectivity for terrestrial and aquatic species.
These are more than just numbers. These dollars mean projects that will improve both safety and people’s lives. The resources provided under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have already resulted in numerous projects receiving funding throughout the country. For example, in Delaware, a $6 million FY 2022 Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) planning grant will fund the design of Route 9 through New Castle. The plan is to convert this arterial through a disadvantaged community using Complete Streets concepts. In West Virginia, $1,887,240 in FY 2022 Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Action Plan Grants will assist rural and urban communities like Bluefield, Charleston, and Clarksburg among others across the State in improving roadway safety planning.
The FHWA is committed to helping deliver these projects faster. In April, as part of these efforts, we announced a Request for Information seeking suggestions from the public on how to best facilitate the FHWA’s implementation of Section 60505 of the Inflation Reduction Act: Environmental Review Implementation Funds. Under this $100 million program, the FHWA can provide funds to eligible entities to support environmental reviews of surface transportation projects. The FHWA may also use the funds to develop guidance, technical assistance, templates, training, or other tools to facilitate an efficient and effective environmental review process for surface transportation projects.
FHWA has long been a leader in accelerating the environmental review and permitting processes, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law offers more authorities to improve those processes that will advance surface transportation infrastructure and recognize benefits sooner. FHWA has taken numerous actions to accelerate the environmental review process. For example, U.S. DOT, in coordination with FHWA, completed a review of FHWA’s categorical exclusions (CEs) and provided interagency partners with a list of four CEs and accompanying substantiation materials for their consideration. FHWA, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) also issued joint questions and answers, providing guidance regarding the changes the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law made in 23 U.S.C. 139 and 23 U.S.C. 138.
The success of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act programs depend, in part, on streamlined delivery of funding to recipients. To be responsive to the significant changes and opportunities afforded by these laws, the FHWA stood up a new, permanent team to oversee internal crosscutting grants-management matters that affect tracking, training, outreach, and more; we also implemented process reforms across our suite of Federal grant programs. We continue to refine our management of these programs to increase efficiency and transparency, thereby benefitting the Nation via the delivery of new projects.
The FHWA also recognizes that some of the most successful projects we have seen over the past few years have a focus on multimodalism, including sidewalks, bicycle facilities, multiuse trails, Complete Streets planning, and complete multimodal networks and connections. Multimodalism is an important element of a safer system because transportation safety is all-encompassing and includes all road users. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides opportunities to improve safety for both those inside and outside of a vehicle. As we implement these programs, we need to address the national roadway fatality crisis by putting safety first for all road users.
The FHWA has taken numerous actions to improve safety for all road users, including recently releasing new guidance to support bicycle, pedestrian, and micromobility projects. In addition to describing the range of opportunities available under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to improve conditions for bicycling, walking, and shared micromobility, this guidance provides information on many pedestrian and bicycle funding opportunities and planning and design resources that State and local agencies can use to address safety and connectivity among multiple modes of travel.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes provisions that encourage State, Tribal, and local governments to develop Complete Streets standards or policies, as well as plans to prioritize Complete Streets projects. A Complete Street is safe—and feels safe—for all users. In January, the FHWA announced a Complete Streets Waiver: the FHWA will use a waiver of non-Federal match for certain funds that are used for Complete Streets planning activities. This waiver will help accelerate Complete Streets-related activities that can improve safety.
The FHWA has a longstanding practice of engaging with our stakeholders across the country, but we have placed an even greater emphasis on these efforts since the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. From enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through May 2023, the FHWA has participated in, led, and facilitated more than 1,000 engagements with interested stakeholders, including cities, counties, special-interest groups, Tribes, and other interested parties. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law creates more opportunities for local governments and other non-traditional entities to access funding, and the FHWA is working to support these nontraditional stakeholders as they build the capacity to take advantage of these opportunities.
We also recently published a primer, Federal Highway Administration: An Overview for our Stakeholders, which is designed to provide stakeholders with an introduction to the FHWA and our work.
With so many new programs and opportunities under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the FHWA understands that our stakeholders may need technical assistance as we work to implement this once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle the most pressing challenges of our time and ready our transportation system for the future. The FHWA has a longstanding history of providing technical assistance, and is committed to supporting our stakeholders at the State, Tribal, and local levels. In order to support stakeholders as we work together to improve our transportation system, the FHWA published a customer-friendly, public- facing, “one-stop shop” Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Implementation Website that contains useful information for stakeholders, including program guidance and fact sheets. The FHWA plans to launch a similar website for Inflation Reduction Act implementation soon.
The FHWA continues to provide technical assistance through Federal-aid and Federal-lands division offices. The FHWA has specific efforts in place to provide training and technical assistance for local and rural road agencies through the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), and for Tribal communities through seven new Tribal Technical Assistance Program (TTAP) centers. Through the LTAP and TTAP programs, we delivered more than 6,000 trainings to more than 156,000 participants in FY 2022. To support potential applicants for the many funding opportunities available, the FHWA is hosting informational webinars for newly published NOFOs to help potential applicants gather additional information and ask specific questions about the funding opportunities. The FHWA is also hosting informational webinars geared towards nontraditional recipients, such as Tribes, to provide customized support for newly eligible entities.
The FHWA will continue to engage with our stakeholders as we work together to deliver transformational investments in infrastructure.
RESILIENCE
Resilience is an important part of building a modern transportation system, as it will help us keep our infrastructure strong and fulfill our most important duty: getting people where they need to go—and getting them there safely. The transportation sector is responsible for more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than any other sector of our economy, and thus transportation must be part of the solution to tackling the climate crisis. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is notably the first infrastructure law in U.S. history that has a section dedicated to the climate; it also offers new tools to make our infrastructure more resilient and to reduce GHG emissions from America’s transportation network.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has several funding programs that are specifically targeted at addressing climate change, and the FHWA has already made significant progress in carrying out many of these programs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law establishes the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) Formula program to increase the resilience of our transportation system. This is a key program that will provide $7.3 billion of formula funding to States over 5 years. The FHWA distributed fiscal year (FY) 2022 and 2023 PROTECT Formula funds to States, providing more than $2.8 billion in Federal funding.
In addition to the PROTECT Formula Program, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law established the PROTECT Discretionary Grant Program, which supports four categories of projects: planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $1.4 billion over 5 years for this competitive grant program. In April of this year, the FHWA published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the PROTECT Discretionary Grant Program, making up to $848 million in funding for FY 2022 and 2023 available to make transportation infrastructure and service more resilient to climate change and extreme-weather events. The resources made available under the PROTECT Formula and Discretionary Grant Programs will serve the American public as we work to ensure that transportation infrastructure is ready to weather the climate crisis.
As the FHWA implements the new PROTECT programs under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we remain committed to providing quick responses to meet the needs of States, local agencies, Federal Land Management Agencies, and Tribal governments when they are impacted by damages to infrastructure caused by natural disasters or catastrophic events. Under the FHWA’s Emergency Relief (ER) Program, we are providing assistance to those communities affected by recent emergencies. Last month, we announced that the FHWA will provide $749 million in ER Program funds to help 39 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico make repairs to roads and bridges damaged by storms, floods, wildfires, and other recent events.
In addition to providing unprecedented funding for electric vehicle (EV) charging, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes more than $6.4 billion for a new formula Carbon Reduction Program specifically designed to reduce transportation-related emissions. The FHWA distributed more than $2.4 billion in FY 2022 and 2023 Federal funds for this program. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also established the Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities Grant Program, a new discretionary grant program aimed at funding projects that reduce port-related emissions from idling trucks. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $400 million over 5 years for this program. In April, the FHWA published a NOFO for the program, making up to $160 million in FY 2022 and 2023 funding available.
Together, the provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will advance progress toward the Administration’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
INNOVATION
Innovation is essential for the future of transportation infrastructure. It will help us tackle a broad range of issues, such as improving safety, increasing the resilience of our transportation infrastructure, and finding new ways to combat the climate crisis. The FHWA’s Turner- Fairbank Highway Research Center coordinates and conducts an ambitious program of transportation research, developing technologies and innovations for highway use. The increased research funding levels provided in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law support further innovation through the FHWA’s Research Program, which will produce the next generation of transportation innovations. FHWA research funding also supports the Department’s University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program for which Secretary Buttigieg announced new five- year grants in February 2023. The UTC Program continues to be a valuable source of research and technology innovation, and of the future workforce of transportation.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are an excellent example of a new technology that has the potential to transform both our transportation landscape and our world, helping us to combat the climate crisis, create good-paying jobs, support sustainability, and work towards a more equitable transportation system. Electrification is also a global economic-leadership objective, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes the most transformative investment in EV charging in U.S. history.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $7.5 billion in Federal funding for the construction of publicly accessible EV chargers and alternative fueling infrastructure. The EV charging provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help us tackle the climate crisis and put us on a path to create a nationwide network of at least 500,000 public EV chargers by 2030. This will help ensure a convenient, affordable, reliable, and equitable charging experience for all users.
The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program will help States create a network of high-speed EV charging stations along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, particularly along the Interstate Highway System. The FHWA distributed $1.5 billion in FY 2022 and 2023 Federal funding for the NEVI Formula Program. In September 2022, the FHWA approved the first round of State plans under the program. We also published our Build America, Buy America implementation plan to ensure that our national charging network is Made in America, as well as minimum standards and requirements for EV charging infrastructure, ensuring safety and reliability. These standards include strong labor supports, such as requiring that all electrical work performed for federally funded chargers be performed by technicians who are certified through the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program or other appropriate registered apprenticeship program. And earlier this month we released updated NEVI Formula Program guidance and accompanying questions and answers. FHWA is working with the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation to have regular touchpoints with NEVI contacts in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and to provide technical assistance as needed. States now have the tools they need to implement this program.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also established the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program, which provides $2.5 billion over 5 years to strategically deploy publicly accessible EV charging and fueling infrastructure, including through corridor and community grants. In March, the FHWA published a notice of funding opportunity for the program that made up to $700 million in FY 2022 and 2023 funding available to strategically deploy EV charging and other alternative fueling infrastructure projects in publicly accessible locations in urban and rural communities, as well as along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors. The Charging and Fueling Infrastructure program will facilitate broad public access to a national charging and alternative fuel infrastructure network while advancing job quality, workforce development, and workforce equity.
Innovation will help us tackle the climate crisis. The Every Day Counts (EDC) Program is a State-based model that identifies and rapidly deploys proven but underutilized innovations that make our transportation system adaptable, sustainable, equitable, and safer for all. The seventh round of the EDC Program (EDC-7) supports two innovations that are specifically aimed at climate-change concerns: (1) Integrating GHG Assessment and Reduction Targets in Transportation Planning, and (2) Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for Sustainable Project Delivery. The FHWA will leverage EPDs for Sustainable Project Delivery and the FHWA Climate Challenge “Quantifying Emissions of Sustainable Pavements” to provide education and technical assistance regarding implementing the quantification of low-carbon materials under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Low Carbon Transportation Materials Grants Program. The FHWA is working expeditiously to establish this new $2 billion program.
Innovation is also a key tool to improving safety, as new technologies have the potential to save and change lives. EDC-7 includes two important safety initiatives: (1) Nighttime Visibility for Safety, which promotes traffic control devices and properly designed lighting to improve safety for all users, and (2) Next-Generation Traffic Incident Management, which promotes emerging technologies such as emergency vehicle lighting and queue warning solutions.
In May, the FHWA announced more than $52 million in grants for eight States from the Advanced Transportation Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) Program. The ATTAIN Program promotes advanced technologies to improve safety and reduce travel times for drivers and transit riders that can serve as national examples of innovation to improve access to transportation for all communities. The FHWA supported evaluation of the first round of Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants, announced in March 2023, funding $94 million in grants across 33 States for 59 projects. SMART Grants allow public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems. The FHWA’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office launched the Smart Community Resource Center to connect States, Tribal governments, and local communities with resources that can be used to develop intelligent transportation systems and smart community transportation programs.
Innovation will allow us to integrate other modes of transportation into our roadway system, supporting not only private and commercial vehicles, but also pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, and people who use mobility-on-demand technologies. While we have engineered increased safety into our infrastructure and vehicles, it is critical that we harness technology to help realize our goal of zero fatalities on U.S. roads.
VALUES
The FHWA serves the American public, and we are focused on ensuring that we are equipped to provide important program coordination and support as the FHWA implements the numerous programs authorized under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Since the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the FHWA has received approval to hire 248 new positions based on the results of an agency-wide assessment. Hiring for these positions has been underway since FY 2022, and these positions will provide support for FHWA headquarters, program, and field offices. To date, the FHWA has surpassed FY 2022 and 2023 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law hiring goals. Through May of this year, the FHWA hired 103 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded positions, surpassing the goal of 100 hires by the end of this fiscal year.
FHWA employees have worked tirelessly and faithfully to implement the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. While that service is evidenced by the quality of the U.S. transportation system—of which we are stewards—we are also responsible for the members of our agency. The FHWA is committed to all of our core organizational values: Public Service, Integrity, Family and Work/Life Balance, Respect, Personal Development, Diversity, and Collaboration. The FHWA is a leader within the Federal Government when it comes to mental-health awareness, supporting staff with a variety of initiatives aimed at increasing overall employee wellbeing. For example, the FHWA offers quarterly wellness webinars that provide a variety of self-help tools and resources for staff to better care for themselves and those around them. Additionally, the FHWA provides in-depth training opportunities for its employees and offers further resources, tools, and strategies for managing individual wellness.
The FHWA is committed to caring for our staff and creating a workplace where they feel physically and psychologically safe, which empowers them to create a safer transportation system for our Nation.
EQUITY
Equity is one of the FHWA’s primary values and drives every one of our programs, projects, and initiatives. We have the ability to reduce inequities in and around our transportation system by expanding affordable access to transportation and related jobs, removing barriers that might prevent individuals or communities from accessing transportation, encouraging wealth creation, empowering communities, and ensuring that equity considerations for disadvantaged and underserved communities are integrated into the planning, development, and implementation of all transportation investments. Transportation should be done with people, not to them. The FHWA understands that we should ensure that we are listening to communities and taking their needs and desires into account.
The burdens of our transportation network, including traffic fatalities, air pollution, and absence of connected networks, are disproportionately borne by underserved populations as a result of historic disinvestment and exclusion from transportation decision-making processes. Through the Complete Streets Implementation Strategy, the FHWA is supporting the planning, implementation, and evaluation of equitable streets and networks that prioritize safety, comfort, and connectivity for all people who use the street network. Implementing Complete Streets equitably includes identifying underserved communities, recognizing their varying transportation needs, and prioritizing the creation of safe, connected networks. In addition to being an Equity Strategy, Complete Streets is a Safety Strategy. By recognizing that streets and networks should prioritize the needs of all users, not only vehicle throughput, Complete Streets prioritize safety for all users at every part of the transportation process. Complete Streets is also a Climate Strategy, as Complete Streets Implementation will help to routinely provide the safe infrastructure that is fundamental to encouraging more use of low and zero carbon modes.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes grant programs specifically intended to address equity issues, such as the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, a first-of-its-kind effort to reconnect communities that are cut off from opportunities and burdened by past transportation-infrastructure decisions. Earlier this year, the Department announced a historic $185 million in grant awards for 45 projects under this program. These awards will fund construction and planning for transformative community-led solutions, including capping Interstates with parks, filling in sunken highways to reclaim the land for housing, converting inhospitable transportation facilities to tree-lined Complete Streets, and creating new crossings through public transportation, bridges, tunnels, and trails. The FHWA is funding or administering projects that reconnect communities through many of our grant programs, not just the Reconnecting Communities Program, and many FHWA-administered grant programs include equity considerations as part of their qualifying or selection criteria. In addition, the FHWA provides tools to grant applicants to assist them in addressing equity in their grant submittals.
The Inflation Reduction Act established a new Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant Program that will support neighborhood equity, safety, and affordable transportation access through competitive grants. The Inflation Reduction Act provided more than $3.2 billion for this program. A NOFO for this program is expected to be released this summer.
The historic investments in our infrastructure under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act will not only benefit those who use transportation infrastructure, but will also extend to those who find well-paid work rebuilding their communities. As part of this year’s Every Day Counts Program, the FHWA chose an equity-based innovation to improve the participation of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises on design-build contracting, a procurement practice often used on the United States’ largest and highest-profile projects.
The FHWA also recently announced new resources under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will create economic opportunities and open the door to wealth creation for disadvantaged entrepreneurs and workers in communities across the country. These include new guidance to support State investments in workforce development, training, and education, as well as $10 million in Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Supportive Services Funding to support small businesses owned by minorities, women, and other socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.
Extending benefits to community members when constructing projects helps create wealth while making our roads safer. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act provide an opportunity to create transformation through transportation.
NATION
Every aspect of the FHWA’s work is driven by the people and the Nation we serve. There are no democratic roads or republican bridges—transportation binds us all together, which is why we must work with each other to support the common good. Roads should be accessible and equitable for all users, not just people in cars, people who do not use mobility aids, or people from wealthy neighborhoods. Our country emerged triumphant in the 20th Century due in no small part to our investment in our world-class transportation system. As we embark upon the largest-ever investment in that system, it is important to remember that if the United States is to continue to be a dominant world power throughout the 21st Century, we must once again make our transportation system the envy of the world. That means we must create a system that delivers for our economy and all of our people, including workers and communities, while getting individuals and goods safely to their destinations. A transportation system that literally unites us as Americans.
In addition to getting people where they need to go, our transportation system must also accommodate freight vehicles and the military. It is essential that we ensure the infrastructure that supported our success in the 20th Century remains an asset. The world sees our infrastructure as a symbol of our strength, and the N in DRIVEN reminds us that we must continue to support the Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET), which is critical to the Department of Defense’s domestic operations.
The FHWA is working to update and expand our transportation system so that it can continue to support all road users, including freight trucks. For example, the FHWA announced four Bridge Investment Program Large Bridge Grant Awards in January 2023. These awards will retrofit California’s Golden Gate Bridge; repair the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in Connecticut, which supported 5 million tons of freight in 2014 alone; rehabilitate four bascule bridges in Illinois, helping them to accommodate multimodal transportation and ensure communities on either side of the river remain connected while allowing barges and ships to continue to use the river; and support the Brent-Spence Bridge in Kentucky and Ohio, which transports 3 percent of the Nation’s GDP per year. These investments are part of President Biden’s broader Investing in America strategy, which is bringing economic opportunity, jobs, and investments across America. Since the President took office, private companies have announced over $470 billion in private sector manufacturing investments, and over the last 18 months, the Administration has awarded over $220 billion in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law aimed at repairing roads and bridges, delivering clean water, deploying high-speed internet, and building out clean energy transportation infrastructure.
The FHWA is committed to working collaboratively with States, cities, local governments, Tribes, and others to make the most of the once-in-a-generation opportunity provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in the future of our transportation system. Such investments will have a positive impact for generations to come.
CONCLUSION
As I noted earlier, U.S. DOT’s focus for 2023 is prioritizing delivery of results. The DRIVEN initiative will help to guide our efforts across U.S. DOT’s three major areas of effort: building good things well; running our operations well in the agency; and protecting the safety and wellbeing of everyone who interacts with our transportation system, as we implement the many programs and funding opportunities created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. DRIVEN will allow us to deliver results for both the U.S. transportation system and Americans as a whole.
Thank you again for giving me an opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to continuing to work with every Member of this Committee to deliver on the promise of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act for the American people. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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TESTIMONY
THE HONORABLE PETER BUTTIGIEG SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION BEFORE THE
APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING, AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED
AGENCIES UNITED STATES SENATE
March 23, 2023
Chair Schatz, Ranking Member Hyde-Smith, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget request for the Department of Transportation, totaling $145 billion.
The budget will propel our Department’s work across our three major categories of effort: running our operations well in the agency; building good things well across the country; and protecting the safety and wellbeing of everyone who interacts with America’s transportation systems – from pedestrians to airline passengers to rail workers.
In each of these areas, Congress of course plays a fundamental role. I want to thank Members on both sides of the aisle who have been true partners as we work to build a stronger, safer transportation system.
I join you today at moment of historic challenge and opportunity in our transportation system, as it copes with profoundly disruptive forces that include continued shockwaves from the coronavirus pandemic, increasing threats from climate change, and the effects of decades of disinvestment which are thankfully coming to an end now that we are implementing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
I believe that a further source of instability across our transportation systems has to do with the conduct of many players in transportation-related industries. Over the years, a drastic tendency away from competition and towards concentration has been visible in these industries. And at the same time, many of the biggest firms in transportation have slashed staff and costs, often boosting their profitability but too often at the expense of operational effectiveness and public benefit.
As these patterns collide, we have seen effects ranging from exhaustion of rail workers that labor organizations have warned could undermine safety, to strained supply chains requiring concentrated public sector attention and intervention.
The result is a transportation system today that is still too vulnerable, and when any part of it strains or breaks, the costs are borne by the American people – from the frustrations of millions of airline passengers to the terror felt by the residents of East Palestine, Ohio after the derailment there.
But we are also in a moment of tremendous opportunity and progress. We are making infrastructure investments across the country using the tools and funds that Congress provided to us - and we are seeing some new and welcome bipartisan support for much-needed safety regulations, including a number of policies we have called for, and which we strongly support.
I’d like to highlight a few critical areas where we have made progress in the last year, and the further strides we can make through the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
On aviation, we are getting airlines to honor the tickets they sell and compensate passengers fairly when there are issues, while advancing safety measures across industry and within the FAA. But there is still far more to do, as recent events make clear. The 2024 budget invests $24.8 billion to make needed investments to add air traffic controllers, improve the safety and capacity of America’s airports, and accelerate the modernization of critical systems and infrastructure such as the Notice to Air Mission System.
On rail, we have made nearly $18 billion available to improve rail service and safety, advanced more than 70 critical rail projects across the country, and published our proposed rule requiring a minimum of two train crewmembers. Derailments may be down compared to prior decades, but we’re still seeing far too many. And incidents in rail yards and with at-grade crossings are on the rise. For every community like East Palestine that has been impacted, and every community wondering if they’re next, the status quo is clearly not acceptable. That’s why the President’s budget includes $273 million to support Federal Railroad Administration safety personnel, expand inspection capabilities, and increase stakeholder engagement to address risks.
Meanwhile, we have put 3,700 bridges on the path to improvement, so trucks and commuters can get where they need to be without delay; we are helping states improve almost 70,000 miles of roads, which means a safer ride and lower maintenance costs for millions of families; we awarded grants for the first-ever Safe Streets and Roads For All program, and partners are stepping up in response to our National Roadway Safety Strategy. But we still see far too many fatal crashes on our roads. Our budget includes $3.1 billion for the Highway Safety Improvement Program, new funding for safer walking and biking infrastructure, and advanced safety research initiatives.
On transit, we have advanced projects from bus rapid transit in Charleston, to light rail in Seattle. This budget includes $4.45 billion for Capital Investment Grants, to move forward with major projects that will improve American transportation for generations, like the Hudson River Tunnels between New York and New Jersey, and the Front Runner Double Track project in Salt Lake City. The budget also includes policy proposals that would allow transit agencies the flexibility to use formula funding for operating expenses to adapt to post-pandemic shifts in ridership.
On supply chains, we have made critical investments in ports from Columbus, Mississippi to Los Angeles so that goods move more quickly – and we have taken measures that helped cut the number of ships waiting at America’s largest ports from over 100 down to the single digits, and helped bring Pacific shipping prices down 80%. This budget provides $230 million for the Port Infrastructure Development Program to build upon this important work.
There is a great deal of progress underway, and a great deal yet to be done.
Together we are stewards of a transportation system that is finally seeing renewal in its physical foundations but shows real points of vulnerability that endanger communities and workers – especially in the places where federal oversight and regulation have been undermined.
Congress in recent years has shown itself capable of delivering a bipartisan infrastructure law that evaded our predecessors for decades. Now we need that same bipartisan strength to sustain those ongoing infrastructure investments – and to make progress on safety regulations that protect Americans driving, flying, walking, riding - and counting - on that infrastructure.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
STATEMENT OF SHELLEY J. YAK DIRECTOR, WILLIAM J. HUGHES TECHNICAL CENTER
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
BEFORE THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
FAA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
MARCH 9, 2023
Chairman Babin, Ranking Member Sorensen, and members of the subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Research and Development portfolio. My name is Shelley Yak, and I am the Director of the William J. Hughes Technical Center and represent the FAA as its Director of Research.
From 1958 to the present day, many of the concepts, technologies, and systems in the National Airspace System (NAS) were researched, developed, tested, and began their nationwide deployment at the Technical Center and its sister center, the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center where the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) is located.
Through our federal laboratories, our workforce, and partnerships with industry, academia, and other government agencies, the two Centers are able to turn ideas into value and problems into solutions. The work we do ensures that the United States continues to lead the world in embracing, implementing, and integrating new technologies in support of the aviation ecosystem. Entrepreneurs around the world are exploring innovative ways to use aviation in their commercial activities, and the need for us to integrate these new technologies into the NAS continues to be a national priority.
The research, development, test, and evaluation work of the FAA is best summarized through six domain areas, which I wish to briefly share with you today. To do so, let us go on an imaginary flight together.
We start our trip, of course, at the airport in the Airport Technologies and Infrastructure domain. This domain is comprised of research areas that include airport planning and design, airport pavement, airport data mining to prevent or mitigate safety incidents, aircraft rescue and firefighting, wildlife hazard abatement, visual guidance research including airfield marking, lighting and signage, and runway surface technology research.
Airport pavement research includes evaluating various innovative pavement materials and assessing their projected life cycle for our runways and taxiways—the largest capital expense of an airport. Airport research also includes surveillance sensors and emerging entrant research. Our current emerging entrant research includes vertiport design research to accommodate powered lift aircraft. Our drone research includes assessing technologies for drone detection and mitigation at airports, as well as assessing the use of drones in the airport environment for such things as pavement inspection and management of wildlife near runways. We are also actively conducting research related to climate change risks and adaptation in order to address airport resiliency and sustainability. This domain also includes the testing we conduct on the performance of airport fire extinguishing agents to replace firefighting foams that contain polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
We then board the aircraft– this is the Aircraft Safety Assurance domain. Our work here has everything to do with the aircraft—including its skin, which may be made of composites and new materials, the propulsion and fuel systems, items carried aboard the aircraft, such as lithium batteries and devices powered by them, and fire protection and detection in the aircraft.One of our current projects is developing an alternative to Halon as a fire suppression agent for use aboard aircraft.
Still on the aircraft, we begin settling in, and that means interacting with the entertainment system in front of us while our flight crew interacts with their Digital Systems & Technologies domain. This includes everything electronic on the plane and across the NAS— including entertainment and aircraft systems, electronic flight bags used on the flight deck, and cybersecurity. One example of cyber research includes using artificial intelligence and machine learning to establish cybersecurity tools that enable proactive monitoring of systems used to manage the national airspace to prevent, detect, and mitigate the effects of cyberattacks.
Well, it looks like we are waiting to take off. The number one cause of delays is weather and weather mitigation is a part of the Environment and Weather Mitigation domain. In this domain, we perform research on everything that affects aviation or is affected by aviation, such as improving the accuracy of weather forecasts. Better forecasts can help reduce delays, increase passenger safety and comfort, and keep the NAS running more efficiently. Other efforts in this domain include aircraft deicin g and anti-icing methods prior to takeoff, aerodynamic and operational effects of inflight icing on all types of aircraft, and finding ways to reduce the effects of noise and emissions on our communities and the natural environment. We have several efforts on this front. This includes our Continuous Lower Energy Emissions and Noise Program, a public private partnership with industry to accelerate the development of certifiable aircraft and engine technologies that reduce noise, emissions, and fuel use. It also includes a comprehensive program to support the development of sustainable aviation fuels through our Aviation Sustainability Center, or ASCENT, and the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative. We are also working with industry to eliminate aviation gasoline lead emissions from general aviation.
As we are waiting for takeoff, let us not forget the people we depend upon during our flight. Our Human and Aeromedical Factors domain supports our pilots, technicians, and air traffic controllers and is where we look at ways to improve human performance. The research, development, and testing conducted here is on how people best interface with the systems they use and on developing training requirements. The Civil Aerospace Medical Institute is the location for all of our aeromedical research, which focuses on safety sensitive personnel and airline passenger health, safety, and performance ability in current and forecasted future civilian aerospace operations. CAMI’s Aerospace Human Factors Research Division also conducts field and laboratory research supporting the performance of front-line aviation personnel, including pilots, air traffic controllers, aviation maintainers, dispatchers, avionics (technical operations) technicians, flight attendants, and ramp workers, with the goal of improving operational efficiency and safety.
We finally take off, and you know your pilot and air traffic controllers are well-trained and checked out. This last domain, to the passenger, is behind the scenes. However, it is the most important domain for getting us to our destination, the Aerospace Performance and Planning domain. This domain includes the air traffic management of our flight and the tools/systems we use to ensure we arrive safely. It includes the safety management systems we have in place and the airspace integration work we are doing on growing operations such as commercial space transportation, unmanned aircraft systems, and advanced air mobility.
Our flight proceeds, and we even make up the time we lost waiting on bad weather due to the tools and forecasting systems we talked about in two of our domains. We land safely at our destination airport—a smart airport that uses technology to manage and plan operations in a digital environment. It is the airport we are envisioning and researching for our future.
Throughout our history, the FAA has adapted to changes in technology and has successfully integrated new operators and equipment into the NAS. We are well-positioned to maintain our global leader status. We are committed to working with Congress and all of our stakeholders to find solutions that balance safety and security with innovation and deliver on our mission to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. This concludes my statement. I will be happy to answer your questions at this time.
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STATEMENT OF
BILLY NOLEN, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
HEARING BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPOTATION:
IMPLEMENTATION AND OVERSIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT, CERTIFICATION, SAFETY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
MARCH 8, 2023
Chair Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today to discuss how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is strengthening our certification and safety oversight processes and our implementation of the bipartisan Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act (“Act”). Before we discuss certification reform implementation, on behalf of everyone at the United States Department of Transportation and the FAA, I want to recognize the families of the victims of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents and thank them for their continued advocacy for aviation safety.
The FAA understands and embraces the importance of continuously raising the bar on aviation safety, not only in the U.S., but around the world. During the past two years, we have made significant progress meeting the requirements of the law to improve and refine our certification and safety oversight processes. Using a comprehensive approach to implementing the provisions from the recent certification reform legislation and the various recommendations received from investigations and independent reviews, we have rededicated our processes to treat aircraft as complex systems, with full consideration of how all the elements in the operating system interact. We are integrating human factors considerations more effectively throughout all aspects of the design and certification process. We are improving the agency’s oversight process by ensuring coordinated and flexible flow of data and information. And finally, we are recruiting a workforce that can meet the demands of the future—by hiring new talent who understand the safety implications of new and innovative technologies, as required by the Act. We will continue to prioritize this important work as we carry out our responsibilities for public safety. It is more important than ever that we maintain our safety record while making improvements that will help sustain our progress. The discussion below provides an overview of some of our accomplishments to date.
- Safety Management Systems (SMS). SMS is a systematic and comprehensive way to identify, monitor, and address potential operational hazards early on, to prevent serious problems from occurring. U.S. airlines have been required to have SMS since 2018. Expanding SMS to other players in the aviation industry is critical for achieving the next level of safety. As required by the Act, we recently published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), which proposes SMS requirements for certain design and manufacturing organizations. Recognizing the importance and value of SMS, we included Part 135 operators and air tour operators conducting operations under Part 91 in NPRM as well. As rulemaking is underway, we continue to promote participation in voluntary SMS programs. These participants submit elements of SMS to the FAA for acceptance; and commit to regular oversight of their SMS by the FAA. As of today, we have accepted more than 60 SMSs for Part 135 operators, Part 91 air tour operators, and Part 145 repair stations; and accepted five SMSs for design and manufacturing organizations, with many more working towards acceptance. The FAA is using the lessons learned from these voluntary programs to inform FAA’s SMS rulemaking and policy development.
- System Safety and Human Factors. In accordance with the Act, we incorporated system safety assessments and validation of human factors assumptions into the FAA’s aviation safety policy and oversight, including the design and certification process. We recently published an NPRM that proposes new requirements on how to conduct system safety assessments for transport category airplanes. We are also working on several initiatives to increase the incorporation of human factors to improve the way systems account for the broad range of pilot capabilities around the world. For example, pursuant to the Act, the FAA completed a preliminary review of human factors rules, guidance, and pilot response assumptions to identify and prioritize changes to better incorporate system safety analyses and human factors assumptions into the FAA’s aviation safety policy and oversight. Finally, the FAA launched a call to action to review revisions made to pilot certification standards. The group provided recommendations on how to improve manual flying skills and automation management, and the FAA is in the process of implementing these recommendations.
- Global Collaboration. Global collaboration is crucial to maintaining U.S. leadership in aviation safety. The FAA continues to participate in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Personnel Training and Licensing Panel Automation Working Group, which is assessing the pilot dependency on automation globally. The FAA is also leading an international authority working group to evaluate the Act’s requirements regarding amended type certificates. This working group recently recommended process improvements based on more than a decade of harmonized application of changed product rules. We are working to implement these recommendations. The Act requires the FAA to ensure that pilot operational evaluations for transport category airplanes include foreign and domestic pilots of varying levels of experience. In response, the FAA issued a notice in 2021, to update the policy to include pilots in Flight Standards Board operational evaluations.
- Data. As the aviation system evolves, the FAA is constantly considering options to improve data accessibility and foster collaboration in order to share data on identified risks throughout the government and with the public. FAA continues to expand the agency’s capability to collect, consolidate, analyze, and share safety data within the FAA and with aviation and transportation stakeholders and international partners. Data enhances the FAA’s ability to identify and respond to potential safety issues and to better identify safety trends in aviation. It is key in our efforts to move to a predictive system, not just preventative. The FAA continues to improve the Aviation Safety Information and Sharing (ASIAS) database, including incorporating rotorcraft data and voice data from air traffic control to support safety analyses. Pursuant to the Act, we have worked with the Transportation Research Board to identify, categorize, and analyze emerging safety trends in aviation and completed the first required report in August 2022. We have also partnered with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to establish the framework for real-time data monitoring.
- Integration of Certification and Oversight Functions. The Act requires the FAA to form an interdisciplinary project team for any type certificate project for transport category airplane. The FAA’s Integrated Program Management team includes subject matter experts from Flight Standards and the Aircraft Certification Service who make recommendations to improve oversight during aircraft certification and operational evaluations. As the team finalizes recommendations, they are already integrating best practices into certification projects and ensuring proper integration on those projects. In February 2022, the FAA expanded the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) process for all new and amended type certification projects for transport category airplanes, and applied this new approach to the Boeing 777X certification program. We also established the FAA Compliance Program Executive Council to monitor the operation and effectiveness of the Compliance Program, and I received the second report earlier this year.
- Culture of Safety and Excellence. The safety culture at the FAA is one that promotes continuous improvement of safety systems and outcomes, while providing support for employees and industry stakeholders to self-disclose safety issues and noncompliance. These efforts include promoting the voluntary safety reporting program (VSRP) among other efforts, and recruiting talented staff. VSRP empowers all Aviation Safety (AVS) employees to confidentially report safety concerns without fear of reprisal or other repercussions. We recently completed the first AVS safety culture assessment, which included surveys of AVS employee’s opinions about safety culture and the implementation of VSRP. The FAA is reviewing the results to determine what actions may be needed in response to the data. We have also hired specialized staff within the AVS organization and provided training to increase competencies on human factors. FAA will continue to evaluate the safety culture and implement measures to improve collaboration between employees and management to identify and address safety concerns.
- Delegation. The Act requires the FAA to make extensive and meaningful changes to the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program. As required by law, we now require FAA approval of individual ODA unit members for certain ODA types, and established a policy to prevent interference with ODA unit members. The ODA expert panel was established in December 2022, and we held the kickoff meeting for the expert panel earlier this month. Finally, the ODA Office within AVS now has approximately 50 employees and is tasked with overseeing the ODA system across all of AVS.
- Certification and Continued Operational Safety Processes. Ensuring the safety of aviation products through certification is an important function of the FAA, and we are enhancing the type certification process. This includes revising guidance and criteria used for determining significant changes to best ensure that proposed changes to an aircraft are evaluated from a whole aircraft- level perspective, including human interface elements. Pursuant to the Act’s requirements, we recently published an order that outlines the aircraft certification service issue resolution and appeals processes.
- Innovation. Aviation is incredibly dynamic, and it is imperative for the FAA to accelerate and enable the deployment of new technologies to reduce barriers and promote innovation that enhances the safety and efficiency of air transportation. Through our Center for Emerging Concepts and Innovation we have expanded efforts to support certification of new aircraft and technologies, including structured pre-application engagement with companies to identify a clear path to compliance.
Chair Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz, I want to assure you, and each member of the Commerce Committee, that the FAA is fully committed to the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act. As we continue this work, we will maintain a posture of transparency and accountability, including providing regular briefings with the Committee and stakeholders across the industry.
