During Wednesday’s Senate Environment Committee hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) questioned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about President Trump's layoffs and pending funding for Government projects.
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NewsTranscript
00:00That would take us to Senator Schiff.
00:05Thank you. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. I want to raise concern about a number
00:11of projects in California that are still waiting for an answer. In the mega program, $283 million
00:18for the Port of Long Beach rail construction project, $166 million for Contra Costa's Innovate
00:24680 program, $53 million for a multimode facility in Madera. In the infra bill, $105 million
00:33for Redwood City, SR 84, US 101, $98 million for Caltrans, SR 99, Tulare Improvements.
00:42In the rural surface transportation program, $41 million for the City of Tracy, Corral
00:47Hollow Road project, $35 million for Yuba County, Plumas Lake Boulevard in FHWA, $102
00:56million for Caltrans I-5, $56 million for SJV Air Pollution Control District, $55 million
01:03for California Energy Commission.
01:06In reconnecting communities, $26 million for the Housing Authority in LA, $11 million for
01:10the City of Galit, a multipurpose path. In the RAISE program, $25 million for BART, $23
01:18million for the Palmdale grade separation project. This is a partial list. And these
01:25projects really haven't received word, so they're unclear of the status of the projects.
01:31And the delays might end up killing the projects. The delays will certainly end up costing more
01:37to do these projects as material costs go up and other costs increase.
01:44And I'm raising the concern because we don't know whether these are changes in policy that
01:51are affecting grants that have already been approved or whether this is a lack of personnel
01:56to administer the grants. And I'm further concerned with layoffs that might further
02:01delay getting this money out the door to do these vital infrastructure projects.
02:07So I would ask for your comments generally on when you think these cities and counties
02:15will hear from you and your department, but also whether you're mindful of the fact that
02:22delay has a cost, real dollars and cents cost.
02:27I appreciate the question, Senator. I would maybe give the whole number. There's been
02:32200 awards announced for California to the tune of $1.74 billion. There's a lot of money
02:38that announcements have been made over the course of the last three years where you don't
02:43have grant agreements on those announcements. I don't know that you were here for this,
02:49but there's 3,200 announcements that were made by the last administration where there's
02:54no grant agreements. That's unheard of. So I'm going to work through those announcements
03:01and get grant agreements so we can build those projects that you're talking about.
03:06And just if I can quickly, I don't want the Republicans to get annoyed at me, but Senator
03:10Whitehouse got a bridge, and in California we're going to announce the Madera 14 expressway.
03:17That one has been completed. We're almost ready to sign that, as well as the Otay Mesa
03:22$150 million. That's at the border crossing. I believe that one's ready to go, as well.
03:28So we've got three Republican or Democrat announcements. I don't have any for you Republicans
03:32yet, but we're just going through the projects.
03:35We're a very bipartisan committee, and I know I speak for my Republican colleagues when
03:41I say they're delighted with money coming to my state.
03:46We'll see how that goes.
03:47It's not quite as delighted as if it was going to their state, but well, Mr. Secretary, I
03:52appreciate it. Anything you can do to accelerate the approval process, and can you speak to
04:00how the cuts in personnel may be impacting the timeliness of approvals in this area?
04:07Yeah, I appreciate the question. So I don't, there's, that hasn't impacted how we're able
04:14to move through the grant agreement process. We still have more employees in the department
04:22than we did when Joe Biden took office, but it's the sheer volume that I was left with.
04:29And just to maybe remake this point, in between Obama and Donald Trump, there was 47 projects
04:38announced between election day and inauguration. Between Trump and Biden, there was 107 projects
04:46announced between election day and inauguration day. And in this last term, there was about
04:52950 projects announced. So there's been a massive number of announcements, historic.
05:00But then that means our department has to do the work of, truly the work is doing the
05:03grant agreements. The announcements are fun, but grant agreements are the work, and I'm
05:06going to get through that, but it's going to take me some time, and I'd ask for some
05:09patience from the committee, just because the workload is so significant.
05:13And Mr. Secretary, if there's any further information you need, and you're having any
05:17delay on our end, you know, please have your staff reach out to mine, and we want to make
05:23sure that we get you all the information necessary to move these projects forward.
05:26I appreciate that, Senator.
05:28Thank you. Yield back.