Mountain State Times

Click here or the image above to watch Round 1 of Ranking Member Capito’s questions. Click here for Round 2.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On June 14, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, participated in a full committee hearing with administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Shailen Bhatt.

During the hearing, Ranking Member Capito questioned Administrator Bhatt on the Biden administration’s efforts to impose greenhouse gas emissions standards on states, implementation of One Federal Decision, and other issues such as “Buy America” waivers and grant distribution.

HIGHLIGHTS:

PREVENTING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FROM IMPLEMENTING POLICIES NOT WRITTEN INTO THE INFRASTRUCTURE LAW:

RANKING MEMBER CAPITO: “In my opening statement I talked about the debate we had about the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure and targets that we had rejected here in the Congress, and you are pursuing a measure that would achieve this through rulemaking. What is your response to what I said in my opening statement? And what authority do you have to be moving in this direction…do you believe you have?”

ADMINISTRATOR BHATT: “…so I would say my reaction to your comments is I hear you, and I heard you during my confirmation hearing about your concerns about the GHG piece. From the authority perspective, obviously we have lawyers at Federal Highways who will examine that, lawyers at USDOT. I believe Map 21 did provide authorities to measure the performance of the transportation system. And I think we are in an open rulemaking right now. We've received, I think, 40,000 comments from folks and before we move forward in that rulemaking, we would want to understand all of those public comments.”

RANKING MEMBER CAPITO: “I think…I probably need a little more clarity on what authority it is.”

ON ‘BUY AMERICA’ PROVISION WAIVER CHALLENGES, PREPAREDNESS: “I want to ask about Buy America. I'm understanding that there are inconsistencies with the implementation of Buy America, Build America provisions that we put into the IIJA and it's kind of got a patchwork of state implementation challenges causing some confusion. So FHWA will play a major role in the Buy America waiver process. If not handled this could bring some of our projects to a halt. I'm hearing Buy America, all kinds of different issues and it goes back to the supply issues that Senator Lummis was talking about. Can you talk about the waiver process at FHWA and how you're preparing for the influx of requests that are going to be coming in the future as this market tightens?”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPERLY IMPLEMENTING ‘ONE FEDERAL DECISION’ TO STREAMLINE TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS: “Let me ask about One Federal Decision because I've been touting that as a way to streamline and obviously it was in the debt bill that we just passed for other projects, and there's concern I think…has this been implemented enough to really make a difference? Are you seeing more streamlined implementation on these projects? You would know coming from the state sector, whether it's moving faster, or how many projects are on track to achieve that two-year goal for the EIS [Environmental Impact Statements]? Are you utilizing the provision that requires one environmental document? Talk about One Federal Decision, your implementation, and some of the specifics that I've mentioned.”

Click HERE to watch Round 1 of Ranking Member Capito’s questions.

Click HERE to watch Round 2 of Ranking Member Capito’s questions.

Click HERE to watch Ranking Member Capito’s opening statement.

Original source can be found here.