Senate Standing Committee on Transportation

For individuals who would like to provide public comment via the teleconference service, the participant toll-free number is 877-226-8163 and the access code is 7362834 once again, that is 7362834. For today's meeting, we will be hearing all of the panels of witnesses on the agenda prior to taking public comment. So we'll make sure to do that first and then, of course, open it up for public comment once again. And I welcome some of our new Committee Members. Senator Niello, welcome, as well as Senator Blakespear.

Welcome. They're here and on time and ready to go. And of course, we will be talking about federal infrastructure dollars. One of the many important actions by President Biden and the last Congress was the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act, known as IIJA, which authorized over $560,000,000,000 in spending through 2026 for federal transportation programs, in rail, transit, highway safety programs, and more.

The act will provide California with billions of dollars in that tranche of money over the next several years, of course, to support our critical public infrastructure. And of course, this comes in addition to the already large infrastructure investments made by Governor Newsom and his California Legislature in the last budget cycles. Today we are going to focus our attention on the transportation investments in the IIJA.

We'll learn what funding is available, what we hope to achieve with that funding, and what can be used to provide good jobs, support small business, streamline projects, and support, of course, our transportation infrastructure. I'm looking forward to the discussion. And after each panel, we'll make sure that members have time to ask questions as well. I'm going to kick it off to my co-chair. With me today is Senator Durazo and her team. Welcome, Senator Durazo.

Thank you, madam. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few remarks about what we're going through in California right now as far as industries, infrastructure, manufacturing, and sustainability. We have the opportunity to determine how billions of dollars, how not if, but how the billions of dollars are going to be spent in our state. And I think to many of us, a commitment to sustainable transportation means a commitment to working families and the men and women who do that work.

We have fought to double our state investments in public transportation. We are not going to really mitigate the climate crisis without addressing how working people move and how we move our goods. California is the largest recipient of federal infrastructure funds and of course, these funds complement our state and what we're spending at the state level, at the local level. It's not enough to finance and incentivize green transportation and other major climate projects.

We have to make sure that the people building these projects have access to quality jobs, careers, and that California is not subsidizing low road companies. We have a legal and a moral responsibility to protect our taxpayer investments. So I look forward to the panel today. While we're deliberating, I see the Biden Administration requiring companies to provide affordable childcare. Think about that, in order to get manufacturing subsidies. So there's a lot that we can do. I look forward to hearing our various speakers today.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Great. Thank you so much, co-chair Durazo. So now we'll kick it off to our panelists. We'll start with our very first panel today. We have Mr. Frank Jimenez, senior fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO, Legislative Analyst Office, as well as Mark Tolleffson, Undersecretary for California Transportation Agency. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. And we'll begin with you, Mr. Jimenez.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chairs and Members of the Committee. Frank Jimenez with the Legislative Analyst Office. We've been asked today to present an overview of transportation funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as IIJA and sometimes referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. I'll be making our comments today from a handout which you all should have received. If not, it should be making its way around from the sergeants.

For those that are watching the hearing online, the handout is available on our website at lao.ca.gov. Turning to page one of the handout, IIAJ was enacted November 2021 and authorized $1.2 trillion across federal fiscal years 2022 to 2026 for various types of infrastructure, including transportation, water, energy, and broadband. In total, IIJA authorized $567,000,000,000 across the five-year period for formula and competitive federal transportation programs.

Turning to page two of the handout, we have a figure that provides an overview of the augmentations that California is set to receive from Formula Highway and Formula Transit funding. I apologize. The figure is printed out in black and white, so the augmentations are a bit difficult to see, but if you look on the far left, you can see for federal fiscal year 2021. That's funding that the state received under the Fixing America Surface Transportation Act, also known as the FAST Act.

So in federal fiscal year 2021, that represents the last year that we received funding from the previous multi-year Federal Transportation Spending Act. If you look in the following years, those are the amounts that we'll receive from IIJA each fiscal year. As you can see, significant augmentations, the larger bar being the Formula Highway Funding and the smaller bar being the Formula Transit Funding. And as you can see, each subsequent year IIJA provides additional dollars for both highway and transit.

So overall, IIJA increased Formula Highway Funding by an average of $1.7 billion annually, or $8.5 million across the five years compared to FAST Act levels. It increased formula transit funding by an average of $620,000,000 annually, or about $3.1 billion more across the five-year period compared to FAST Act levels. Turning to page three of the report or of the handout, we have a table that shows all of the federal programs that provide Formula Highway Funding to California.

And on the right hand side, on the totals column, it shows how much funding is provided under each program, and this represents federal fiscal year 2022. So that's the first year of the FAST Act. Each program has its own spending requirements and its own allocation formulas on how it provides funding to the state.

If you look at the very bottom of the table, there's a percent split between state and local, and you'll see that the state reserves 60% for state-level activities such as highway maintenance and rehabilitation, and 40% is a portion to local agencies to address local transportation system needs. If you look at the splits between individual programs, some of them align with the 60/40 split. Some are higher, some are lower, but in aggregate, it's a 60/40 split amongst all of the programs.

The 60/40 split isn't unique to IIJ. Historically, the state has split Federal Highway Formula Funding in accordance with this 60/40 split between state and local. The 60/40 split is a combination of several things. First, spending requirements under each program, discussions between CalSTA, Caltrans, and local agencies, and ultimately the 60/40 split is approved in the Budget Act. Formula Highway funding is budgeted through Caltrans, with 60% for state operations and 60% for local assistance.

Largely, IIJA carried over many of the federal programs and provided some augmentations, but it also provided funding for several new programs.

At the bottom of the handout, we highlight a couple of these programs, the first one being the Bridge Formula Program, which provides funding to support bridge maintenance and rehabilitation projects. The Protect Program, which supports transportation projects that address vulnerabilities to current and future weather events, natural disasters, and climate change impacts such as sea level rise. The Carbon Reduction Program, which supports projects that reduce transportation emissions. And the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, which supports funding for the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Moving on to page four, we provide a similar table but shows the federal transit programs that provide Formula Funding to the state. Similarly, on the right-hand column, we provide the amounts for each program, and this also represents for federal fiscal year 2022, which is the first year of the FAST Act. Similarly, the programs have their own spending requirements and their own allocation formulas on how they provide funding to the state.

In contrast to the Formula Highway Funding, Formula Transit Funding is largely provided directly to local agencies across the state, so, in contrast, most of it does not flow through the state budget process. Programs primarily focus on capital improvements, but can be used to support operational expenses in certain circumstances. For example, the Rural Area Formula program provides a little bit more flexibility in allowing those agencies to use funding for operational expenses.

Turning to page five of the report, IIJA included significant increases for other areas in transportation, one of those being for intercity rail. IIJA includes 13.2 billion annually over the five-year period for intercity rail programs that support Amtrak rail routes and competitive grants. This represents an annual average increase of 10.8 billion nationwide, or 53.9 billion more across the five-year period when compared to FAST Act levels.

Even though this isn't Formula funding, the programs that support Amtrak rail routes could be used to support Amtrak rail lines and stations that are within California's jurisdiction, and also the state and local agencies are eligible to compete for the competitive grants. IIJA also includes significant amount of funding for competitive transportation programs, both new and existing. Over the five-year period, IIJA is anticipated to provide over 100 billion in competitive funding across programs that support highways, freight, rail, and transit.

Some key programs include the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America Program, which supports multimodal freight and highway projects, the Capital Investment Grants Programs, which support the capacity building for transit systems, both new and existing and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program, which supports the deployment of zero emission vehicle refueling infrastructure. Turning to page five of our handout, we have suggested questions for the Legislature as it conducts oversight of IIJA Funding at this hearing, and both as it conducts oversight on a continual basis.

We have a series of questions that are grouped in six categories, the first one being outcomes and accountability. It's important for the Legislature to understand what the state's intended goals are for the IIJA Funding that's being made available and what metrics is the state tracking as we track our progress to meeting those goals. Discretion decision-making understanding how much flexibility there is within various federal programs. How is the state currently using this flexibility and to what extent additional legislative direction is needed?

Prioritization understanding what criteria the state is using to ensure that funding is targeted towards the highest priority programs, but at the same time also ensuring that funding reaches communities and populations where funding may be most in need. Competitiveness seeing where the state is currently right now in drawing down competitive IIJA Funding and are there additional steps the state could take to better put the state and its local agencies in a position to draw down competitive funds.

Transit funding issues as all of us know, some transit agencies are facing operational shortfalls. I find it's important for Legislature to see how IIJA Funding helps with this issue and then climate change on the adaptation side, understanding how the state is improving its transportation systems, but also building resiliency to climate change impacts such as sea level rise or extreme weather events such as extreme heat or rain and flooding that could undermine roadway systems.

On the mitigation side, ensuring that funding goes towards projects that align with the state GHG reduction goals and don't run counter to them. With that, that ends our comments and happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much Mr. Jimenez. Now we'll move on to Mr. Tolleffson. Thank you so much for being here as well.

Great. Good afternoon, Chair Gonzalez. Good afternoon, Chair Durazo and Members of the Committee. My name is Mark Tallison. I'm the Undersecretary of the California State Transportation Agency. I'm about three months into the role at this point. I previously served as a Deputy Cabinet Secretary with the Governor's Office and a Senior Counselor for Infrastructure and Fiscal Affairs. Had an opportunity to work very closely with Mayor and Speaker Antonio via Regosa as he was helping us get organized around IIJA.

So, as noted by the LAO and thank you for the extensive presentation, the bipartisan infrastructure law, or IIJA, provides a historic opportunity, $1.2 billion, or $1.2 trillion for infrastructure spending over a five-year period of time. We're really at a moment right now where our values as a state are very closely aligned with that of our Federal Government. The White House has talked about four key pillars as it pertains to IIJA really focusing on climate, equity, jobs, and build America by America.

At CalSTA, we have our core four priorities that really guide our work, climate, equity, economic prosperity and safety. Safety being the one difference, but still heavily aligned with what the Federal Government has tried to push for. And a number of programs also support that principle. So when we talk about this moment being historic, what does that really mean? So if we look at transportation funding coming to the state, we have about $41.9 billion expected to come through Formula dollars over the next five years.

As the LAO mentioned, 60% of that goes to the state, 40% of that will go to locals, and then there's opportunities to pull down billions of dollars more from our competitive buckets. To date, we've received about 11% of all discretionary funds, $2 billion of the $18 billion in competitive programs made available. Always room for improvement. But we've had a lot of successes. Just two weeks ago, the state received five awards for $30 million of the 185,000,000 made available for the reconnecting communities program.

That reflected about 19% of the total pot. We received 400 million through the bridge investment program for the Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit, and we received the largest award from the INFRA Program with $150,000,000 going to the Ota Mesa East Port of Entry project. But one thing to note is that as we look at these competitive programs, they're open to both the state and local agencies, and coordination is really going to be key to our success.

So with that, soon after the launch of IIJA in November of 2021, CalSTA and Caltrans reached out to a broad range of our federal, state, local, and tribal government representatives, transportation stakeholders, to participate in an IIJA implementation working group. Through that, we formed 12 different subcommittees based on our priorities and focus areas, mostly led by Caltrans policy leaders and subject matter experts. They met over 50 times. Areas such as safety, fix it first, active transportation, carbon reduction, transit, and equity, among others.

So Caltrans has used the federal program guidelines, as well as CAPTI, or Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure to really guide its selection of projects, as well as to guide us in our support of local agencies with their projects. So under this approach, Caltrans considers both program fit and how well these projects align with our state goals and policies based on the 10 CAPTI principles that we have. And those cover areas within kind of that core four that I mentioned of safety, climate, and equity.

On a parallel track, our state's infrastructure advisor, Antonio Villaraigosa, conducted a series of regional listening tours. Given the size of our state, we wanted to ensure that we were hearing about the infrastructure needs throughout our communities and really wanted to seek ideas of how to maximize this opportunity. So convenings were held throughout the state, 50 plus sessions with over 1000 stakeholders over a four-month period. This included representatives from business, state, local, and Federal Government, labor, community leaders, as well as nonprofits.

The stakeholders provided a lot of feedback and recommendations on their infrastructure priorities, community engagement, project delivery, as well as job creation. What's very clear through those efforts is that our California communities have a wide range of needs, from critical light rail projects, to roadway repairs, to more community-focused needs like underground utilities, building community centers, or even procuring a fire truck with a ladder, which would allow for additional stories of development for affordable housing.

A key to our success is really going to be for our regions of the state to work well together, get behind a series of projects that really have those triple and double bottom lines. Projects that may reduce VMT but also benefit a disadvantaged community. A project that really helps reduce VMT, but may also support housing or workforce development. And it was clear through our discussions that IIJA is complex.

There's more than 350 distinct programs, and it's hard for even the state to track, let alone our local governments. It's very much more acute for them as well as our tribal governments as well. So in the first year, the Federal Government was really focused on just trying to develop these programs, get the dollars out on the street, which forced us to be a little more reactive because there wasn't a set calendar in terms of when these notices of funding opportunity were going to come out.

So with that, as we think about years two through five, we really have an opportunity to be more strategic with this work. And with that, we are taking in all that feedback that we heard. We want to hear from you. We want to work with you all on opportunities to really help move projects faster, ensure that California is remaining competitive, as well as making sure that all communities are benefiting from this opportunity.

Because, yes, this is about projects, but it's also about people at the end of the day. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Jimenez and Mr. Tolleffson. That concludes our first panel. So we'll now open it up to questions from Members.

Sure.

Okay, I'll start with co-chair Durazo. Then we'll go on to Senator Blakespear.

Thank you very much for the information. We are much more used to in California having policies. We have more experience and do it more often. Policies for construction jobs, good construction jobs. But what we haven't had the same experience on is on non-construction jobs. And so I just want to get your ideas on recommendations for conditioning contracts and subsidies on enforceable jobs in addition to the construction, but the others, such as manufacturing and pathways, ideas on that quality training, apprenticeship and pathways to good jobs.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think as we look at this opportunity, we have a lot of, I think, workforce standards here in California already on the construction side. We do want to ensure that we are building a sufficient pipeline of workforce to ultimately deliver on these billions of dollars of projects moving forward.

As we look at the IIJA, while transportation is probably about 70% of all the funding coming in, we are looking at areas such as water, energy, broadband, outside of the transportation space, hydrogen hubs, energy, where there are absolutely opportunities to think about how we can leverage this moment to develop advanced manufacturing career paths. So that's something that we absolutely would love to kind of work with you and the Committee on figuring out ways to move forward, but that's definitely something that this Administration is thinking about.

And just as a follow up, we're better at doing the train and pray if there's going to be a good job after that. We need to be better at the train and make sure there's a job and a career at the end of that. So a lot of times our training programs are just the training part and not connected to a good job.

And I think it's really important to make sure that it goes all the way to the point of a career and actually getting hired and not just, okay, we trained you. Goodbye. You're off on your own. So that's a really important element to this as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Durazo. We'll go on to Senator Blakespear.

Thank you. Yes, thank you for your presentations. I appreciate hearing from both of you today. And welcome to the job. Three months in. I'm also three months in, so I know a bit how you feel. I appreciate how much money we have going into transportation in the big picture. And the briefing paper references the number of 28 billion for highway-related investments and then another 10 billion for public transportation.

And we're having a whole other conversation, I think, about the need for transit to have more operational money so that it can actually expand in this state, and so making sure that we're really clear-eyed about needing to do that. I think one of the important statements from the California Air Resources Board is that the state has been urged to double local transit coverage and service frequencies by 2030, and that's not going to happen without a major investment.

So just making sure that that's top of mind, I think is really important. And I wanted to ask both of your opinion. I have two main points. So the first one is, I wanted to ask both of your opinion about, really this key question of accountability. And what I mean by that is that I've recently been part of a similar type of oversight hearing when it comes to housing. And if we look back five years to 2018, we've spent $23 billion on homelessness and housing.

But homelessness is up, and we have not been able to track where that money has gone very well. And so what I'm particularly interested in hearing from you about is whether we're on track to not repeat that problem in the transportation sector. And so I'll just share that one of the things that it said on the housing side is that we have been very good at figuring out where, basically capturing where spending is happening, but not where outcomes are.

So those outcomes, in my mind, spending would be spending on certain projects, but outcomes would say how much mode shift was accomplished, how many additional transit trips do we have, how much emission reduction are we seeing, how many more people are able to get to work, being really clear about what those objectives are that we're trying to accomplish.

And then also, I'll just share that another thing that I thought was particularly interesting in that housing context which is applicable here, is that it mentioned the question of whether goals that are local align with legislative priorities. So it being unclear whether local goals and legislative priorities are the same. And I think that that can definitely be the case in this area.

I come from having been the Chair of the Transportation Agency SANDAG in San Diego County, and a lot of times there might be a local government interest in congestion relief, but there's also a vision, zero interest in having traffic calming. So we're trying to reduce deaths and create more safety, but congestion relief being top of mind for very local people, local projects, local commentary. So I wanted to just hear your response to that.

Do you feel like with this amount of money, which is double the billions that we saw in the housing area, if we look forward five years and we're accounting for where this money went and what goals did we meet, do you feel that we have the tracking and the accountability systems in place? And if not, what could we do better to get them in place so that we are able to really be happy with what we see at the end?

Because I know that there are all sorts of demands and desires for this funding and a lot of enthusiasm about it, but we really want to make sure that we are meeting those goals. Well, I would like to hear from you, and then I just have one other small point which I won't go on about, but go ahead.

Thank you so much for the question. Yeah, Senator, I believe that all the points that you're bringing up are definitely valid. It's important for the state to track what is it trying to accomplish with this IIJA funding, both at the state level, with a portion of both Federal Formula and competitive programs, and also tracking what local agencies are doing with this funding as well.

There's a lot of flexibility built within several of these transportation programs, and there is some discretion provided to both Caltrans and local agencies on how to utilize this funding.

And we find it's important for the Legislature to set clear outcomes that it would like Caltrans to measure both for itself and both statewide from its local agencies, whether that's through holding informational hearings such as this and having the departments come ready to provide updates on those key outcomes that the Legislature is interested in or providing some sort of legislative directive on the goals that the Legislature intends the state to achieve, the departments to achieve, and tracking what local agencies are doing with this funding.

So what I heard from you just now was that actually there is work to do from the Legislature to set better goals. So what you're saying is there is flexibility and discretion, but that you would welcome more goals?

Yeah, I would defer to the Administration to speak about the outcomes that they're currently tracking right now. But yes, as part of the oversight, the Legislature could establish its own goals and key outcomes it would like the Administration to measure if the ones that it's measuring currently don't align with what the Legislature intends to measure as well.

And appreciate the question. And definitely, accountability is something that's going to be key with these funds. We don't want to take this, again, historic opportunity and then be sitting here four or five years from now. And what did we get from it? And I think part of this is a little bit also about telling the story. How is this actually benefiting the people at the end of the day?

So in terms of what we're tracking as an Administration at this stage, we have our Rebuilding California website that actually is tracking not only our SB 1 outcomes, but also kind of how we're doing with respect to our IIJA funding. So there's obviously more things that we can track there, but at a minimum, we are tracking the number of awards we're receiving, where these dollars are going, some of the outcomes, like jobs how many of these dollars are benefiting disadvantaged communities?

So all things that we're tracking, and I think there's more opportunity for us to even be more transparent about how these funds are being spent, particularly from the state level. And then how do we gather that data from locals to make sure that we can also, again, tell that story of how this is benefiting communities?

You brought up housing, which I think in the transportation world, we actually kind of have the same struggle a little bit with respect to just the long lead time that it takes to actually deliver on a project. So those outcomes that you would like to track, such as, as you mentioned, mode shift, ridership, all of those are things that we may see three years from now, once that project is up and running.

But are there some things that we can track in the interim in terms of our progress? How can we as a state kind of work to actually make sure that we are delivering projects even faster so we can actually get at those outcomes, get at those benefits?

So with that being said, we are tracking a number of things, but there's obviously room for improvement and different places that we can go and would love to kind of hear from, again, the Legislature in terms of what are some things that are important for you to see coming out of this?

Okay. Thank you. It sounds to me like we do have more work to do to define those goals. Because the money spent and the projects it's spent on, I think we need to be looking much more clearly at some of those other things. Ridership, improvements on transit, mode shifting, reductions in accidents in terms of the Vision Zero safety goals. So I hope to work together on doing that.

The last thing I wanted to mention was that we've created a Subcommitee that will look at the LOSSAN Corridor, which is the rail corridor that goes along the coast. In many sections, it's the rail corridor, and there are at least two sections that are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change being right next to the ocean, and that's in Del Mar and in San Clemente.

And so this Subcommittee is, we've already put together a draft of five or so meetings, and we would like to talk with you about getting together all the stakeholders, making sure it's productive, making sure there are deliverables at the end.

So internally, there's been a lot of work on that, and I just want to make sure that it's on your horizon and that we can get on your calendar and make sure that that happens, because it's exactly in line with what this oversight hearing is talking about and trying to achieve specific goals. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Cortese.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, to the Chairs, thank you for doing this, pulling this together. And as kind of foundation for my question, Senator Durazo and I have also been working on a couple of these types of hearings, except really in the sustainability, workforce, equity, with the emphasis on workforce, on the labor side, being the zchair of the Labor Committee here.

And so your comments, both Senator Durazo and just, you know, in some of the materials here in your presentation indicate to me that you've done a lot of work kind of parsing out what's coming. And I guess my question is, and I get it, that we have another panel later on that's going to talk about, among other things, jobs and workforce a little bit.

But the real question, which I think is probably more directed to this panel, is how much detail do you have at this point in terms of federal workforce standards and whatever they've done to integrate equity versus what we would ordinarily do or where there's gaps in what we would do? It's something that we have the University of California Labor Center helping us with and other folks trying to break that down.

But I'm just wondering if you have any work product like that that's accessible to this Committee or to my Committee, Senator Duraza's Committee in the other context.

Yeah, thank you for the question. I would say that obviously a lot more focus in next week's hearing on that, bringing in our labor partners as well. But as far as kind of tracking the opportunity with IIJA, the beauty of that is that at the Federal Government, at the federal level, they've embedded a lot of workforce development activities as eligible uses of these funds.

So those are things where we are kind of looking in real-time as to how that can maybe supplement some of the work that we're currently doing. I think overall there's about 72 programs. I was looking at a Brookings Institute Study. 72 programs that include some element of workforce within the 350-plus programs. Only six of those are really kind of focused solely on workforce.

But I think it does kind of create this opportunity to, again, use this moment to make sure that communities are benefiting from this, again, historic opportunity.

So it's definitely something where, as we think about some of our even Formula Programs that are coming through the Highway Safety Improvement Program, Surface Transportation Block Grant Program, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality National Highway Performance Program, some of those core Formula dollars that are coming our way. Could we utilize some of those programs to help, again create the pipeline of workforce so that we are able to deliver on billions of dollars of program? So that is something that we're thinking about.

And I think as far as your question on the specific workforce standards, yes, a lot of the federal programs incorporate those. I think generally a lot of our kind of state work that we're doing does align with that, especially with some of the local provisions that exist today with respect to kind of skilled and trained workforce requirements, project labor agreements that exist in state law. So we are kind of benefiting from that in terms of our competitiveness for some of those programs.

But definitely something that is top of mind for us.

Through the chair. Just as an example of what I want to be able to drill down to. We want to, and I know Senator Durazo has done a lot of work around procurement as well. And then I'll drop this. I'm not trying to know next week's hearings by any means, so please don't feel like you have to go down that path yet.

But I was on an informational webinar just recently on the federal procurement side of things, meaning how they're pushing down grants and so forth. And they talked about the green. I'm trying to think the exact name of it, but the so-called bank that's pushing money down for EV infrastructure, for example, and indicated that they put no workforce standards at all on an entire section of that based on kilowatts and different measurements. But essentially that there's a hole there, there's a gap there.

So I guess I was just asking to what extent, and we can pick this up next week, but to what extent have you been able to identify where those gaps are? Because it seems to me those are important for us as policymakers to know, do we want to try to take down that money but add workforce standards where they've left gaps? I guess that's a question. I'll leave it out there as a rhetorical question because I know the Chair needs to move on. Thank you.

Oh, that's okay. If you have any additional comments on that, that would be great. It'll be a precursor to next week.

Yeah, that's great. And I won't get into a lot of the specifics, but definitely on the EV charging and kind of the NEVI Program, which is going to be a huge opportunity for us here in California. We are looking at different workforce standards that can be incorporated even absent that requirement at the federal level. So just, I think more to come next week, and I'll make sure that our team is teed up to talk about that, but that is something that we are aware of.

Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chair.

And I guess last question that I have, and then I'll turn it over to Senator Becker, kind of building off of that with the buy America provisions. I know, which is, of course, part of your four pillars there. And speaking to folks last week in DC, obviously, we want to make sure we're creating market share for a lot of these industries here in the country and, of course, specifically in California if we can.

But can you tell me a little bit of the challenges that we've seen with America and what else we can do to support just building that, of course, more into, of course, the IIJA and what else we can do to support that as a Legislature?

So, yeah, that's definitely one of the kind of core pillars from the Federal Government with respect to these funds. I won't say that it's been kind of easy to incorporate those standards into some of our projects. We're really going to see more of that come up in year two. As these programs were getting kind of off the ground, there were waiver opportunities to just ensure that we could get projects going, get applications in, starting to deliver.

But as we move into kind of years two through five, I think that challenge will become more acute. It's something that we want to work with our federal partners on to just make sure that each of these programs are crafted in a way where we can be successful, not only in California but across the nation. So it is something that our teams are looking at. I know our team at Caltrans in particular with respect to some of our transportation opportunities.

They're kind of going through all the applications, making sure that our projects can meet all the respective criteria, which is fairly extensive, but it is something that we're looking into.

Okay, great. Thank you, Senator Becker.

Sure. Thank you. Chair. Apologize I was a few minutes late, but we had caucus, another meeting. So tell me if this is more appropriate comment maybe for the next panel. But when I talked to our congresswoman, she says how hard she fought for money in the Infrastructure Bill for grade separations, and it's very difficult. If you look up and down the Caltrain line, for example, it's estimated about $11 billion is needed, and any one grade separation is about 350,000,000.

And these are needed to realize the promise of electrified Caltrain, which the state and others have invested a lot of money in. But it's hard for any one city to do that now at this point. So I guess my question is, what are you doing and what can we do to help cities apply for this federal money.

Yeah, thanks for that. And grade separations are extremely important. May not be the sexiest projects, but definitely important to communities as we're thinking even about reconnecting communities. We have money in the budget to do some of that work. Thank you to the Legislature for the 350,000,000 that was put in the state budget for grade separation projects that can help basically supplement our applications to make us more competitive at the federal level.

One of the things that we did hear as we are kind of going out on our regional listening tours is some of the challenges just with capacity. One, learning about the programs, knowing when the opportunities come up, but then how do we kind of put forward the strongest applications moving forward?

So, yeah, I think if there's priority grade separations kind of throughout the state, throughout the Caltrain Corridor, we're happy to kind of provide technical assistance and work with the respective teams there because definitely these projects are important here in California and we want to make sure that we're putting our best foot forward to bring in as many dollars as we can and utilizing some of our state investment to leverage those federal dollars as well.

Thank you. Yeah, because in many cases we're talking about cities with 20-25 thousand people and they don't have the capacity on their own to do this. So I appreciate that.

And one thing just to follow up with that is I do think also if there are priorities for the region, for the region to really come together and coalesce around those particular projects, which can also help support maybe one of those smaller cities where that great separation is specifically in their community.

Thanks. Working on that. Thanks.

Okay. I don't believe there are any other questions from the dais here for the panel. So I want to thank you, Mr. Jimenez and Mr. Tollieson for your time. Thank you very much. I'm sure we'll have follow-up to many of our discussions, but thank you for being with us.

Thank you.

All right, next we're going to head to panel number two, which is the benefits to state and local transportation infrastructure. We will welcome Mr. Mike Keever, Chief Deputy Director from Caltrans. Bill Higgins, Executive Director for the California Association of Councils of Governments, as well as Georgia Gann Dohrmann, Chair for the federal Legislative Committee, California Transit Association. Thank you all for joining us.

And when ready, we will begin with Mr. Keever for your presentation. Thank you.

Chair Gonzalez, Chair Durazo and Members of the Committee, my pleasure to be here this afternoon. My name is Mike Keever. I'm the Deputy Director at Caltrans. I was appointed to this position in January of 2022, and I've worked with Caltrans for a little over 30 years. Certainly in the past five years, we've seen historic levels of investment, as have already been discussed.

So our thanks to the Legislature for the faith and the commitment that we make to you for entrusting us with these funds and working to put them with the best investments for the people of California. Starting with the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Act, SB 1, we now have stable levels of funding for the first time in 20 years. And this is helping us and local agencies to fix California's roads and bridges, improving goods movement and increasing transit, inner city rail and active transportation.

Now, with the passage of IIJA, the IIJA, we have an even greater opportunity that has been discussed here. So working together with Caltrans, CalSTA, our local and regional partners, to deliver on projects that will transform. This is certainly in my career, a unique and amazing opportunity that we have currently. So we're working to strategically invest these funds aligned with the goals of SB 1.

So certainly the 'fix it first' component is a significant part of this, but there are so many more transformational opportunities that we want to take advantage of, as been discussed here. The work is guided by the four core principles that Mr. Tollefson talked about, safety, equity, climate action, and to Senator Durazo's point, economic prosperity. So prosperity for all, for all the people of California with the opportunities that we have here.

So it's guided by the climate action plan, CAPTI, and as has been mentioned, we're very well aligned with the IIJA goals. And I think as a result, we're seeing in a number of the programs, in some places, we're punching above our weight, if you will. There are other places, however, that we hope to do better.

And this is where the discussion here and with our partners, through the IIJA working groups, trying to find ways that we can work together to find the most competitive submittals that we can make in order to bring the funds, the competitive funds back to California to meet our very substantial needs. And so whether it comes to 'fix it first', goods movement, reconnecting communities, climate resilience and adaptation, carbon reduction, again, we're very well aligned.

We have projects and planning already in place that we can point to that says these are the places that we would like to make these investments. And so now certainly is the time to make these transformational investments. A lot has been discussed by the LAO and others on the funding that is available, but certainly in California, we'll receive something over $25 billion over the next five years, which is an increase of nearly $6 billion over the fast act.

And as been mentioned, that split between the state and the local agencies within California. In addition to the formula increases, we have the NEVI program. So the Electric Vehicle Charging Network program, and I'll talk a little bit more about that, but another $384 million and then 9.45 billion for public transportation options. As of January 2023, California has invested 3.25 billion of the IIJA funds as Mr. Tollefson talked about, we want to put this money to work as quickly as we can.

So there's been a lot of dialogue, a lot of sharing of information. And as I mentioned, we have a lot of plans already in place because of the alignment of our thoughts with the availability of these funds. But there's more that needs to be done. So certainly agree with the discussions here. But we are putting this money to work as quickly as we can to meet the needs that we know that we have and get those good jobs out there.

That 3.2 billion, $5 billion is creating over 42,000 jobs currently. So, again, working to put people to work through this program. Mr. Tollefson talked about the working groups and the interaction. There were at times in these working groups, over 400 people. It was basically an open door, many different entities that were participating in those working groups and then additional sub-working groups to dig deeper into the detail. And it's this engagement that has been pivotal in us working to establish our priorities with the IIJA funds to date.

It's been mentioned the number of different programs. It is a complex bill, very complex, with the number of programs. Each of those programs have their own requirements, where the money can be placed. And so we're working very hard to make best use and strategically put those funds to work where we can get the greatest benefit. For instance, on the NEVI, we are working with the California Energy Commission to try to leverage their expertise and work that they're doing with electric vehicle charges.

The NEVI program, we've focused on trying to fill the gaps. So in disadvantaged communities and in rural communities in particular, where the marketplace isn't necessarily making these investments. And so we're trying to be strategic in where we place those within the parameters of the NEVI program. The IIJA also creates the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient and Cost-saving Transportation programs, so PROTECT. So this is a program, there's both formula and competitive funds available, but this is helping us with our climate adaptation.

And so going forward, again, we have plans. Looking at Los Ang is certainly a very good example. State Route 37, Gleason beach. We just realigned a portion of the highway that we were going to lose with sea cliff erosion and wildfire and evacuation. We have a lot of climate needs, certainly here in California. I'm sure it's not lost on anybody today just how important that is to us. And so working to put those funds to work.

We're also, sorry, I'm trying skip ahead with the parts that have already been covered. We're also working with the bridge replacement project. So again, we have additional bridge funds. A portion of that went to the highway bridge program. So this has been a very oversubscribed program for a long time, but helping local agencies with their bridge needs, similar to the discussion on grade separations. A lot of times a small city or a county may not have that ability to fund these types of projects on their own.

So this allows us to bring the funds together, find where those priorities are and work to get bridge investments made, as well as the investments on the state highway program as well. Some recent examples of some of the things that we're able to do with the IIJA funds that we did not have the ability to do earlier. A long time discussion by the Legislature, but the San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge suicide deterrent fence, so moving that forward

Near the port of Long Beach, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, which is a workhorse for the port and working to replace that deck, that takes a beating, frankly, with all of the trucking that goes across there and then working to make investments, maintenance investments, before it becomes a bigger problem, we have to replace these bridges, some more strategic investments. As has been mentioned, so far, we've been awarded about $2 billion of the $18 billion of discretionary.

We're going to continue to go after those funds. Recent success was the reconnecting communities. We certainly got the lion's share of that. So again, that alignment, given that we were focused on our own needs of what we can do in order to reconnect communities. The transportation has divided. A total of 45 grants were awarded and California received five. On the Safe Streets for All, California received $1.7 billion for 225 projects and again, very substantial investment.

Again, because of the alignment, things that we already had identified. And also on the reconnecting communities, a substantial investment. There were only six projects that were, there were capital funds. A lot of them were planning. So for 980, for instance, and on the 710 Stub, but also City of Long beach on Shoreline Drive and reconnecting that section. So fantastic opportunity for us there.

And so in conclusion, I just want to express my appreciation to the Legislature again for the funds that have been entrusted to us, putting these to work for the greatest benefit of the people of California. We hope to do the exact same thing with IIJA. We're working to align, a lot of the same philosophy is guiding us on where we're putting the IIJA funds, but it expands our opportunities and appreciate the opportunity to share with you this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Keever. I appreciate that. And as you've, appreciate this really good context of what we've been up to, but as we're talking about reconnecting communities and the six projects that you'd mentioned, can you go- Actually, I'm going to stop because I said I was going to do this after the panel. So my apologies. I'm not taking my own advice as Chair today. Anyhow, thank you very much, but keep that for later. We're going to go on to Ms. Dohrmann.

We'll go on to you next to discuss, of course, the state of Transit.

All right, I'm on. Madam Chairs and Committee Members, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'm Georgia Gann Dohrmann. I am the Chair of the California Transit Association's Federal Legislative Committee. So I'm here with my CTA hat on. I am also the Assistant Director of Legislation and Public Affairs with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area. As you know, the Association is a nonprofit trade organization, represents in Sacramento more than 220 Member organizations from across California's transit industry.

The Association's membership includes transit, rail and ferry agencies, metropolitan planning organizations like MTC, RTPAs, manufacturers and suppliers. So a really good cross section of what represents the transit industry in the State of California. Historically, the focus of the Association's work has been advocacy directed at the state legislature and state regulatory bodies. I'll say that's largely because that's where a significant amount of the resources come from. However, over the last decade, the Association has really significantly increased presence in Washington, DC.

So the aim of that is really to be able to offer California's congressional delegation and the congressional leaders our unfiltered and specific feedback on federal legislation and appropriations. As an organization, we view this expansion of our work as critical for sharing California's leadership on climate change and air quality with the nation, as well as helping to shape some federal policy to reflect and advance our state priorities.

And I think what has really been shared about how the federal infrastructure bill really tracks with and aligns many of the things that California has been leading for years, particularly related to climate, a focus on equity, a focus on good paying jobs and workforce development, is really a testament to a lot of the sort of ability to have folks like the Association, but also leadership at the state be able to have a strong voice in Washington, DC.

As I begin my prepared remarks, I was told that I must share that I did spend a good portion of my career in Washington, DC. I both worked on Capitol Hill for a couple of US Senators and as an advocate working on federal transportation policy, which is why I was asked to chair the Federal Legislative Committee for CTA. This hearing is titled 'Making the Most of Federal Transportation Infrastructure Funding'. I think it acknowledges the significant increase in federal funding for the transportation sector.

I just want to take a second and share. I think in a lot of your materials, you're seeing IIJA, IIJA, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, BIL. Despite all the time that Congress spent on developing the infrastructure bill, they couldn't come up with the best acronym possible, so we came out with IIJA from Congress and the President decided that he wanted us to call it the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the BIL.

So I like that acronym a little bit better, and that's what I'm going to use today because of my colleague here, Bill Higgins. So I think what I want to share, as has been shared, a significant portion of the funding from the BIL are guaranteed to come through California's transit agencies through federal formula funds. And that's really important and core source of resources that transit operators have to be able to maintain state of good repair for our transit systems.

The other main source of funding is related to, obviously, the significant expansion in capital competitive grant opportunities coming from the feds. And I'm going to skip over, I think, a lot of these remarks and just share that the competitive grants are administered by the US Department of Transportation. Just to get a sense of scale. We've used a lot of billions here, but the dollar amount that's going to be available for transit operators to compete for has grown by over sevenfold.

So 750% increase in the capital money that transit operators can try to access from the feds. It's really one time, it gets sort of calls for projects every year for five years, and then it goes away. So a lot of us have focused on how this is a historic opportunity. It's a once in a lifetime, it's a once in a couple of lifetimes opportunity.

And it's really important for California transit operators, but it's also really important for every other transit operator across the country. So it's highly, highly competitive. And again, as others have shared, I think the California Transit Association have really been sort of excited that the goals of a lot of the programs are very aligned with things that California is already leading on.

So, for example, in order to be able to access some significant amount of zero emission bus grants, you have to have, I don't know, a plan that you are going to be transitioning fully to a zero emission fleet. We're set up really well for that with the ICT mandate. You also have to have very strong workforce development requirements in there because we have been leading on that in the state. We're in a good position to compete well.

The thing that we are really in dire need of to actually know we're in that place. So is New York, so is Chicago, so is Memphis. I mean, so are a lot of places around the country. And so it sounds a little funny to come in and say what we really need to be very competitive is more state money so we can compete for more federal money. And that's because the feds, like everybody else, likes to be the last dollar in.

They like to provide a little bit of money for a huge project. And so some of the grant programs where we've talked about how California has been really competitive and bringing resources in are those grant programs where the state is providing significant matching funds so folks can come in and say, you told me I needed a 20% match, or you told me I needed a 10% match, but I'm bringing in a 50 or 60% match. And that means that they're giving us the grants.

So some of the work that the Association is doing is around at the federal level, really around looking at those guidelines, tweaking things, trying to make sure that transportation agencies in California are going to be very competitive for the funds through the guidelines process, but then also working really strategically at the state level to try to tee up transit operators to really be able to sort of make ourselves shine and get that competitive edge.

And one of the sort of, I think most creative places where the Association has been really involved is in things like trying to support the HVIP vouchers. I can never remember the name. Hybrid & Zero-Emission Bus Voucher Incentive Program. So what the Association has really been working on there is saying, working with CARB and other partners to try to make sure that the state funds offered from that voucher can be used as local match for other federal competitive bus grant money.

I think that's going to come to what our ask is for you all today, or our recommendation is all today. Based on the Association's 2023 state and federal legislative programs, we'd encourage the Legislature to focus on the following five areas. I think this is going to come as no surprise, given my tee up, but the maintenance of state capital funds is one.

So as you well know, the fiscal year 2022-23 state budget included significant new funding for transit capital projects, zero emission transit vehicle deployment grade separations, a number of other very important things. Of course, due to the state's budget deficit, the Newsom Administration is proposing reductions to some of those investments. So what's really important here is maintaining the state capital funding would really be able to better ensure that agencies pursuing those federal grants can have that competitive edge. So that's one big ask here today.

I think we also wanted to offer a couple of just thoughts around other things that the Legislature might be able to do. So we're not just talking to you about money, and one is related to permitting and environmental reform. So SB 922 from last year. Thank you for that, Senator Weiner's Bill really streamlined and increased project delivery for clean transportation projects. And that is something that is being utilized quite a bit across the state, for sure in the Bay Area.

And it's something that's really helpful to make sure that we can get those federal dollars and put them on the ground quickly so then we can go back to the feds and say, 'see, trust us, we delivered'.

One other thing the Legislature might consider is aligning some of those CEQA-related permitting reforms with some other reviews conducted by state agencies, boards and commissions like the Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, to think about things that can make those review processes go faster, so projects can really get on the ground quicker. I'm happy to talk more about that later if there are any questions.

And then just for the sake of time, I will focus on our last point, which is related to workforce recruitment and development. Of course, making the most of our federal investments should mean more than just maximizing our state's drawdown. We also want to ensure that as we secure funding, we're able to deliver projects with service levels and upkeep necessary to be transformative. So I know Michael Pimentel has been here sharing the workforce challenges that the transit industry is facing.

While we will be building out recommendations on workforce challenges in the coming year. We really want to signal today that it's an area where support from the Legislature is absolutely going to be critical on addressing things like worker safety and also building the pipeline for transit workers. So with know, thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for that. We appreciate you being here as well. Now we'll move on to Mr. Higgins.

Good afternoon. Bill Higgins with the California Association of Councils of Governments. Thank you for welcoming us here today. CALCOG represents the regional transportation planning agencies, councils of governments, county transportation commissions, congestion management agencies, and the 18 metropolitan planning organizations, including SANDAG, that have responsibility for implementing the sustainable community strategy. Being the fifth speaker, I have the privilege of having all my points made before me.

So I'm going to concur with everybody and maybe reflect on what is said, and then that will be a shorter presentation and I'm sure that will make me more popular. First of all, I thought I would take a regional and local take on what we've heard so far. I think that Caltrans and agencies have done an amazing job because when the IIJA was passed, it was mid year. They had to hit the ground running and they did an amazing job.

And I'm looking forward to partnering with them in the second and third and fourth years where we have some time to actually think about it. That's my polite way of saying it wasn't perfect, but they did a good job and they had to, because it was like halfway through the fiscal year and they just had to get programs and things out. For example, they did a good job of implementing and working with their own CAPTI document, the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure.

However, they started using a process. They didn't have time to do the full outreach, and they've been doing the outreach lately and we've been able to comment on that. So we appreciate that. And we understand that they were under strict timelines. From our local perspective, sometimes that was frustrating, but we also understood. We also appreciate there is a lot more money out there, and particularly after SB 1 passed and that's coming online. And now we have the IIJA.

For most of the regional agencies that I spoke with, it doesn't feel like a real windfall just yet. And that is because the funds that we work with, or the MPOs work with the most to achieve the sustainable community strategies, the funds that they often put down are the CMAQ, Congestion Management Air Quality funds, and the STBG block grant funds, and CMAC under the IIJA was held constant. It didn't have the increase, right? So that was the same as previous years.

And the STBG is, in effect, slightly increased. It was increased by a lot. But then the set aside for the active transportation program was enlarged. And while we love active transportation programs, when you look at it in terms of achieving your climate goals, it's not the most effective strategy when you're asking us for performance on climate. And so what we can actually do is not as big as what we might have been hoping for, at least so far.

Now we're just getting the climate reduction plans, our program funds online. The PROTECT money will be coming soon, so we'll be seeing some more soon. But so far we haven't seen the revolution. And that's just the way the program is structured. Because if you look at that 1.7 billion a year extra that we're getting, 450 million goes to the shop. And we will see increased shop programs in our area, so that's an indirect way that we'll recognize improvements in our regions.

And then there's a lot of money goes to NEVI and other new programs that have yet to be implemented. So the net increase for the programs that we think of as our main programs doesn't feel as large as some of the other programs. I also would like to comment on the multitude of different programs that are out there. I talked to a senior executive yesterday at one of our largest members, and he said, there's so many programs out there, I can't keep track of them all.

And if that's our largest member or one of our largest members, you know, imagine what that's like for the Madera County Transportation Commission, or any of the others. And it's really difficult to track all these competitive programs. And then the analysis that you have to do is whether your project is worthy to put all the time and effort into a grant program that's oversubscribed by 10 or 20 to one. And so that's a difficult way to get money.

And I would encourage us to think about in future surface transportation acts, whether if we can use our collective persuasion on the US Congress to think more in funding tranches, that, for example, could be combined with your state solutions congested corridors program or something like that. So we can leverage the program and then we know we're getting predictable amounts of money, and then we can program. And it works a lot more efficiently than having 10 people apply for a project and one person getting it.

And so that's a really big challenge that we have. Fortunately, I think the state has been doing a really good job of trying to corral everybody and identify the projects. And when we understand how that interrelates with CAPTI and things, we'll have a better solution. I also wanted to address your accountability issue. I think it's absolutely correct that we should be getting the most out of them, and all of our members would agree with that.

We would also share with you what came from what we call the AB 285 report, which came from the Strategic Growth Council that kind of looked at the implementation of our sustainable community strategies. And it recommended that the state needs to reconcile its own goals when they're applying them to us. We get your housing goals and your climate goals and your job goals and a lot of other goals.

And sometimes it's, equity goals, and sometimes it's really hard to achieve all of them at 100% because not everything perfectly correlates. And so we should have the accountability discussion and we should think about how those new accountability measures interrelate with your existing ones. And so we would engage in that.

And speaking of accountability, I'm going to throw one other thing out at you that's a little off script, but we talked about the five year income line of this money and it's going to get more and more.

And I'm going to say maybe in terms of net, because if the state is successful in its own performance goal of achieving, electrifying the new cars that are being sold, what we're gaining year to year under IIJA are going to be more than compensated for by losses in the gas tax. We have a Road User Charge Committee at the California Transportation Commission, but we're not committed to finding a replacement as a state yet.

I mean, we need something like a commitment to figure out what our replacement mechanism is going to be by 2030, so we can implement it by 2035 when all new cars sold are going to be electric. We lack that kind of statewide performance goal which we think we need if you're going to want your mobility and transportation system to function the way your performance, all of our performance measures say. Everything else they said, I agree with. So those are my comments. I'll open it for questions.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Higgins. And I first want to ask Mr. Keever, building off of what I'd mentioned before on the reconnecting communities, because I think this has obviously been discussed quite a bit from many Members present, past etcetera. Are you, is Caltrans directly applying for those funds for the reconnections, and then who are you partnering with and what types of outcomes are you looking for in those projects?

So it's a combination. And so we certainly are collaborating, whether we're the lead in submitting or it's with the partner. And as Mr. Higgins talked about, we're trying to guide our local partners because we want to bring the funds into California to meet the needs of people in California. So whether Caltrans is the lead or the local entity is the lead. So on some we've submitted and on others it has been our local partner that has submitted. But in either case, there's collaboration between us.

Okay. Constant discussion and collaboration. Great.

And on that note, I think we've got legislation moving forward to be able to look at the data on what expansion of freeways could look like, maintenance and safety. Lots of questions around that. But we want the data to be able to see exactly what we're working with so we don't have to draw down funds if we don't need to or reassess what our communities could look like. And also, to your point, do the reconnections as well.

So I look forward to working with Caltrans on that specific data to figure out what we can do, like where we need to pivot on our transportation highway systems. And then secondly, and then we'll move to Senator Allen, and then Senator Blakespear, is for Ms. Dohrmann on the streamlining thoughts, and I know we've done some work with 992 I think you'd been talking about. Obviously, we've got bodies like the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission, as you reference.

Any additional thoughts on the streamlining of the permitting and how we can help with that.

Yeah. One idea that the California Transit Association has been having some conversations with Infrastructure Czar Villaraigosa about has been an idea of potentially doing something like if something's under a CEQA ministerial review, is there a way to look at a ministerial review for a Coastal Commission permit or something along that line. The other thing that the Federal Government has done is they have a dashboard and it's essentially the clock's ticking. Just some accountability measures around moving permits through. So we don't have a, you know, this is the silver bullet right now.

We would like to sort of wait and see what Mr. Villaraigosa's recommendations are that he's working on and just certainly support the goal of moving projects that are clean, good transportation projects faster.

Great. Thank you. And I think we've heard loud and clear in our last hearing, we know, the fiscal clips that many of our transit agencies are dealing with. Talked about it at length across the state, not just for Los Angeles, where I represent, but across the state, and what more we can do to leverage those funds from the Federal Government. So I thank you for dealing with this. And I think to Mr. Higgins' point, I know many of our local agencies have been doing so much in this respect, and so we want to be able to do as much as we can, but, you know, we don't know what the future looks like.

So that's why you're all here to help us reinvent that next wave of transit and transportation. Next we'll go on to Senator Allen and then Senator Blakespear.

Well, this is a question probably most directed to Georgia, but I think each of you might have some thoughts on this. You know, I don't think you'll have a stronger advocate for more funding for a transportation transit build out than me. I mean, I was part of a group that held out our votes on the gas tax to make sure that there was that significant portion of funds that goes from that funding source toward transit build out. We talked about ridership last couple of weeks ago.

We know there's been a serious problem. One of the big problems is, quite frankly, safety and security. There's a horrific article in today's Los Angeles Times about conditions on the metro. We're spending all this money on the build out of the metro there, which, as I say, I'm very supportive of.

And yet there was one transit operator, a train driver, who called it absolute horror, talked about stabbings and deaths on the trains on a regular basis because of drug use and the fact that just a lot of commuters have given up on riding out of basic safety concerns. Can you talk about this issue, how it's impacting your work and what work may be underway to address this and what sort of funding might be available to address this?

Because I see this as becoming an emerging crisis for our system. As we do what we need to do to build out this system. We also need to make sure that we're doing so in a way that will encourage people from all walks of life, families, young women trying to get to work.

I mean, this has become a major social justice issue for working people for whom commuting on this beautiful transit system that we've all built and spent a lot of money on has become increasingly dangerous and quite unacceptable.

I mean, thank you for that comment and question. And I think this is one of the situations where the California Transit Association as a whole, I mean, I connect quite often with operators around the state, are really facing a sort of both and situation. We're sitting here looking at what do we need to do to allow our system to survive today and how can we thrive for tomorrow.

And part of this sort of challenge is trying to identify quite a few near-term things of addressing the operating fiscal cliff. I mean, one of the reasons why transit systems can sometimes feel unsafe, I'm speaking as a personal rider, is if I'm alone on a train with one other person, that's one level of safety. And if I'm on a train with 40 other people, I typically, as a woman walking, taking BART home, feel a lot safer.

So some of it is bringing riders back in the near term. At one of the last hearings, folks from L.A. Metro, and some operator representatives, and others from around the state really talked about working with supportive services and being able to get some of those resources coming into the transit systems. The other issue that the Association is working really hard on right now is connecting on operator safety. That's a huge challenge and issue and a really important item to address.

And so all of those that work is sort of ongoing and unfortunately this is the one thing right now. But there are ideas coming in. One of the other things that is true is that maintaining state of good repair for the system and maintaining some of the addressing cleanliness, being able to have bus doors that open and close at the right time, being able to have a new bus that has some of the safety and security and a new bus that has cameras on it.

Those types of things are really important. And that's what we are looking for from the feds for capital money. That's what we use our capital money on for rolling stock. And we talked a little bit about the fiscal cliff and some of the questions about the IIJA or the BIL Funding flexibility.

And one of the challenges is that we're looking here on the transit side, have this fiscal cliff, and also definitely have an influx of federal resources that can go to things like buying new buses, making sure we are maintaining those systems and we either spend the money on that or try to flex it over to some type of preventative maintenance. And it's a lose-lose if you're taking from that one and feeding this other one.

I think the other piece just to close out on that, is that we need to be continuing to work with all of our partners it's not a transit operator entity. It's not working only with local governments or for the counties. It's having those communications with operator groups. I mean, it's going to be a really big collective effort, and I think that's just in progress.

I would just add to that how we fund the operations of the system. Too often we think of it as just maintenance and the bus driver or the train driver and keeping clean cars. You know, L.A. Metro also just started their ambassador program, which is actually putting a lot of non-police officer, but informational people who can have radios and can make calls on the trains. That's an expense. And I don't know how we fund that.

What sort of, this federal monies that we're talking about, can we use it to help address this issue?

The federal money is in urban areas. This is just a history of the Fed's approach that the Federal Government's role in transit in urban areas should be to support capital. In rural areas, they can flex it to operating. So there's some limited ability to move money around for things related to state of good operations cost or state of good repair. But no, you cannot use a federal dollar to fund an ambassador program.

And so that's why we need to ask for more flexible money from the state.

And I think on that note from last discussion, Senator, we found out specifically for L.A. Metro, they were spending about $20 million of operating expenses for this program to connect with our unhoused and create the ambassador program.

That's quite a bit of money. So it's just figuring out what to do next, of course, is the big discussion. But that's a big chunk of money to be spending when we know our housing providers can also do that, too, or our homeless providers can do that as well. So lots of discussions we need to have ongoing. Yeah. Did you have any other questions?

I'm just very concerned about the situation. I believe in this work. I believe in this build-out. I think this has an opportunity to transform life in California for the better while addressing our environmental goals. But all of that is for not, if we're not creating a system that people feel comfortable and safe riding on, and we may be spending $20 million, but the results just don't seem to be working out on the ground. And by the way, this is not just an L.A. Metro problem.

It's particularly acute in L.A.. But we've got a problem on BART. We've got a problem in systems up and down the state. And I think this has to be part of our conversation. And if the federal money is not adequately flexible. We've got to figure out a system that's going to work here to help our agencies address this issue through the state budget.

Thank you. Senator Allen certainly noted here and big discussion of topic. Go ahead.

Thank you. Yes, I appreciate that Senator Allen brought this up because I was having that dystopian feeling of like we're talking about this generational levels of investment. But yet in my mind, I'm thinking about what Senator Wiener describes as the death spiral for transit, that these capital investments are really important. But what about the operations and the conditions in transit and the falling ridership and all these other problems?

So, you know, it does seem like from a state level with this federal money, we should be trying to be really clear-eyed about being creative and flexing, to use your word. And I'm sure that's a term at BART that's frequently used, but flexing our way into being able to support transit success because it does seem like that is a high priority.

And I just go back to the reality that the transportation sector is 50% of the emissions, and we spent so much time talking about climate change and wanting to move the needle on climate change, and it's critical that we have a more robust transit system in order to actually be able to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. It's not just about driving electric vehicles. It's also active transportation, of course, and transit.

And so I refer back to what CARB had urged the state to support, which is by 2030, which is within seven years, to double local transit coverage and service frequencies. I mean, we're not going to do that without really dedicated intentional action around know, making sure that we talk about it at every opportunity. You know, I did notice that Ms. Norman, you didn't talk about transit operations at all in your comments before you were asked about it.

But just making sure that, because to me, that's the message that we really have to be focusing on, is that the transit operations are the critical missing link here. And so we can't just be talking about capital and then leave that part silent because that's where we need so much attention. So I want to just emphasize that I agree with my colleagues when they're saying those things and that I hope that it is top of mind for all of us.

I also appreciate, Mr. Higgins, that you referenced the road user fee, because I have been thinking about what is the status of the road user fee at a state level. It was ridiculously controversial in our County of San Diego, remains that way, but it is a solution that has to be implemented at the state level. So having a recommendation from the Policy Committee that's working on this, I think is really important. And I'm glad you mentioned it because I have been wondering about it.

And then I really appreciated the suggestion that you had about ministerial review for a Coastal Commission for Transit. I think that seems like a really good idea, and it was worth pursuing that same kind of streamlining effort. And then also just to make sure that the accountability.

I wanted to ask Mr. Keever if you feel like the accountability, which I know the accountability maybe is the Legislature's role, and it's not maybe the role of the locals or the transit agencies or even Caltrans, but I really feel personally focused on that because of the problems we see over on the housing side, that we have this record investments and then we're not seeing the outcomes we want.

So when it comes to, to me, the goals really mode shift, emissions reductions, safety improvements that are specific, having like fewer accidents, I mean, that kind of data that shows safety improvements, and then the equity investments, which would be more transit riders, just the realities of the data, I wanted to know if you, and all three of you would be welcome to answer.

But if you feel that with all these pots that are so complex and difficult to follow, which is also similar in the housing area, that if we feel that we're on course five years from now to feel like this investment made a difference.

Thank you. When SB 1 passed, there were accountability measures associated with that. So we're required to track our performance with those funds. It's not unreasonable to expect the same thing with the IGA funds. Currently, we provide a report to the Legislature annually. We're also required to identify efficiencies in what we're doing. And the Independent Office of Inspector General audits that. And that report also comes out annually.

And so we report on the efficiencies as well as how we're doing with meeting the performance goals, but with these transformational investment opportunities, that needs to continue to evolve. And I think that's part of what you're asking. The challenge, though, has been brought up multiple times. None of us really has all of the levers, right? And so the accountability becomes shared. So how do you line all of these things?

And we talk about this with our partners all the time, because whether you're talking about your congestion goal, your equity goal, your VMT goals, your housing goals, we all have to work together in order to find where those things can align to make that progress. We're having some level of success. I would say so even though it's contentious, it's kind of bringing us together at the same time. So in these discussions, we're finding places that we can find solutions.

So I am, I'd say optimistic that we can work together, but the challenge is, in fact, all of these are individual and not necessarily linked together. And so I think certainly we are familiar with and expect to be held accountable with these transformational investments. But we have to decide, what do we hope to measure and how do we do it collectively? I think that's the big challenge.

I would just add an example of a goal that we work together on, is we have our GHG goal under SB 375, which is 19%, but the state wants to get to 25%. That's what the states and that's in flux right now and changing.

But if we had a plan that delivered 19%, and then the state adopts SB 743, which requires more mitigation through CEQA, and the state adopts CAPTI, which limits the type of programs it can suggest to us to put into our regional transportation plan. After we forecast what the new development pattern might look like with those constraints, our 19% plan might be 20 or 21. And that's a place where state policy influenced the regional policy as an outcome.

I've had that conversation several times with my friends at ARB, and they kind of understand that relationship. And so when you read, for example, ARB's recommendation, which I think you were reading from earlier, they've made 56 recommendations in their SB 150 report, which was done by Senator Allen, authored by Senator Allen. And a lot of those 52 of those 58. 52 of those 56 recommendations involve some kind of state action. Some of it's state, regional, and local.

But there's a lot of state action that needs, because the SB 375 plans are kind of an input-output device we get into, as you would know. And so if we get more resources in there, like the REAP 2.0 Program that you get, we're actually starting to do some very creative things, and we look forward to reporting out that to you because that's a $600 million program.

One additional going down, your points on the transit funding issue and the operations, I think we also need to think about more multi-year commitments. Too often, our funding sources are just year to year. And I'm going to cite an example that might be a little bit dated because it's like three or four years old.

So my friends at ARB may have fixed it, but there was a rural electric car-share program in the Central Valley and disadvantaged communities with car-sharing places at affordable housing developments. Think about how many boxes that checks. Right. And it was successful except it was done with Cap-and-Trade Grant. And at the end of the first year, they had to stop everything to go get another year of grant.

And I would say for those kind of operational things, we should have a program where they can apply for three or five years of money to launch a new program and have that certain. And that would be a way that we could support these new things. Because I think we kind of think about we have a bias towards capital funding where we have to probably move to a combination of capital and operations.

And finally, on performance, I think that we're used to performing and we're also used, unlike the housing as much. We have a long record of spending and being audited in a good way because that's the culture from FHWA, that when we're spending and providing that Caltrans is directed by FHWA and looks over our books pretty closely.

I think you'll find that the transportation funding system has a lot more accountability built into it because of the federal and state system that's been there for 20 or 30 years.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you very much. And I'm going to talk about a couple of different things. First, the urban issue that we've been talking about, my colleagues from Santa Monica and Encinitas have both touched on heavily. But I think with the mass transit issue, we have a societal shift. And the shift is, in mass transit, you have people that have a choice, and you have people that don't have a choice.

The people that have a choice will not ride it anymore, or significantly reduced numbers of them are willing to ride it anymore because in order for them to be on it, it has to be safe, has to be sanitary, it has to be reliable, and it has to be convenient. Right now, they don't see it as any of those.

We had a Senator right up here the other day who said she refuses to go on mass transit because it'll take her longer to get to work than it would if she just sat in traffic. So there's an issue with that, and we're pouring billions of dollars into that. But at the same time, we're creating policies on the other end that make it less safe. Our public safety challenges in California are well known, and so we need to shore that up.

I think, I hope you can agree that before we dump billions and billions of more dollars trying to increase ridership, that we're going to have to address some issues that aren't going to go away. People are afraid. I mean, now with COVID people don't want to ride in a packed car with everybody. And having ambassadors is an interesting concept to me as a former person that worked in the streets in areas that are really challenging. It's like they're supposed to call in when trouble starts.

There's a little rule out there. It's called snitches get stitches. And that's what happens to people like that. So you won't have ambassadors for very long. So there's issues with the whole transit thing in the urban areas. So let's go out to the suburban areas where a lot of the cities that I represent are. I have four counties and one of them is Riverside County. Riverside County is slated to be the fastest-growing county in California in the next 25 years.

And the biggest challenges we have is we have a lot of growth potential and happening right now. And that growth is being fueled by mandates that we get sent by the state. Thank you, Mr. Higgins, for pointing some of those challenges out. And all these mandates are coming in to create this growth. But then we have a mandate that says we don't want to build roads because those are not part of the climate action plan.

We need roads out there if we are going to be the fastest-growing region in California for the next 25 years. So how do you Caltrans, et cetera, how do we make that happen out there? Is there going to be a focus on out there? Because certainly trying to build rail out there, we can build some trunk lines like Metrolink from one place to another, but like a Metrolink-type, I mean a Metrolink-type thing, but not the smaller commuter rails.

So how do we secure? Are there any plans for securing areas like that? The investment we need in areas like Riverside and San Bernardino counties, because if we don't, we're not going to be able to accommodate the growth. And those folks don't have jobs out. Their job centers are San Diego, Orange County, and L.A.. So we don't have roads for them. They're going to be stuck in the traffic they're stuck in now. And so what's the plan? Do we have a plan for those areas?

Is this directed to anyone specific?

Anybody that wants to answer it?

I got first pick, so I chose this question. So we just had our annual conference in Riverside last week and got a chance to look at things close up. And a month ago I actually facilitated the strategic retreat for the Riverside County Transportation Commission. And that conversation involved a lot around. Certainly, there was some desire for more roads, but there was also a lot of discussion about more transit and the limitations on building your way out.

There was also discussion about building job centers so that people don't have to commute over the passes or into the L.A. Basin and can work in the community centers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. There was also the highest priority project that was discussed a lot in, and one that's also been prioritized by CalSTA is a Metrolink rail that would go all the way to Coachella.

And I believe the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority is also using those tracks for local commuter rail with zero mission trains should be on in the next smaller cars that are going back and forth. So they're working within the solutions. Is it a perfect plan? No, there's a lot more to go out there. But the first thing we have to do is have a vision, and that's what those plans are, are a vision to build a more vibrant community out there so the folks aren't driving.

And then there's a whole warehousing issue out there, too, that folks are struggling with that I don't have the answers for.

Yeah, and a couple of comments. So I was on WRCOG. I've been part of that process for 25 years now.

Okay.

We were talking about this 25 years ago, and it's still a problem. So the other issue I wanted to, especially before the Caltrans gets in there, a lot of the infrastructure that cities out there need desperately are just connecting communities, is the overpass issues that we have, and then also some of the interchange issues that we have that growing communities wind up needing.

We're not done building roads and bridges and interchanges out there, and it seems a lot of the money is going away from that and leaving us kind of high and dry. And we have done tax measures. We've done all kinds of things to try and raise this money, because what we're doing is we're chasing a project down in Temecula. $70 million was what the original cost is. Today, $138,000,000 is being spent on one phase of it.

So we're constantly chasing this funding when, if we would just get the funding in the first place and we could get the things built absent all this process, there's so much process, we'd actually be able to alleviate some of this traffic and alleviate some of this air pollution and maybe attract some people to come over and set up shop to provide jobs, but we're not doing that. So, understood that.

But what's Caltran's plan out in the Inland Empire there to make sure that we get these projects done because this is a golden opportunity to catch up a little bit and I feel like we're going to get left behind again.

Yeah. So your point is certainly a good one. Affordable housing, I mean, that's not what this panel discussion is about. But transportation and affordable housing are linked. So when we're talking about, again, being in California for All, having those opportunities, create housing, and connect people to good paying jobs, that's important. That's part of our People First mandate. So we're including that in our discussions. And as Mr. Higgins was discussing, we are in those discussions together trying to find multiple solutions to this.

It's not likely that any one thing is going to make all this happen or go away. Congestion is important. To your point earlier, one in eight Californians of driving age don't drive. So what do we do to provide for them? So part of this is you do need, just from an equity standpoint, you need to have a system that they can use.

They have a right to find a way to reliably get to a job on time in order to go back home and meet their mortgage, too. So we want to have a baseline of some sort of a means of providing transportation so they're participating in life the way that everybody else can. At the same time, we're not saying we would never widen a highway, but we are saying widening highways may or may not solve your congestion problem.

A lot of times you're talking about chasing the money. We could spend a lot of money and still end up with the congestion. So trying to plan those things, how do we link the housing goals and provide those opportunities? Can we provide more local jobs so people don't have to go down to Orange County or wherever? And can we get the people where transit use is a choice back? I think the points made by Senator Allen and yourself are spot on.

We have to provide that safe, reliable, convenient system. I'm very fortunate. I have taken a bus to work since 1995 and it's all of those things. I'm very fortunate it's a commuter bus and it brings me into Sacramento and I actually get home earlier by taking the bus because there's a lane there that allows that bus to go past the congestion. And frankly, it has Wi-Fi. I can keep working and answering my email. I can work on the bus and I get home earlier.

How can we provide that same opportunity to others? It's not the choice for everybody. There are a lot of people that they don't have those regular types of commute. But to the extent that we can provide that opportunity to those that is a good choice, that means that we're able to solve the congestion by getting people with a different alternative. And it means that others that don't have that choice can be using the highway for the types of things that you're talking about.

So I think it has to be a multifaceted solution.

And those areas that are late in the coming in developing, like our area, the next frontier, those need to not be left out of the conversation. So there's a lot of people feel like we are out there. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. We'll conclude with Senator Durazo.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Going back to the subject of the workforce, maybe, Mr. Keever, you could start with the responses. But I understand that IIJA, which is what this hearing is about, IIJA allows states and localities to use local and economically targeted hiring preferences for federally funded construction projects. How do you envision implementing these initiatives so we could maximize the benefits to our communities?

So certainly we have a focus on not only is this referred to as IIJA, IIJA Bill, but Jobs Act kind of, right? This is about jobs as well. And so how do we take these funds and provide not only the opportunity to link people to the jobs, to the transportation investments that we make, but also allow them to participate, to your point earlier. And so right now, we have a number of programs that I think we can build on.

So with the federal funds, we are required to have a disadvantaged business enterprise goal. And every three years, basically we hire somebody, they understand the science behind it. They look at what opportunities are out there for us to bring people from throughout the state to participate and where are our gaps. So that creates our goals of what we want to see in terms of disadvantaged business participation. We also, on the state side, have our small business goals, and we've been meeting and exceeding so far.

So currently, our disadvantaged business goals, they've increased. I may get the numbers a little bit wrong, but since 2017-18 it was at like 12.5%, something like that, and currently, it's at 22.2. But our latest measurement was we're at 24.7% participation. So it's increased substantially. So the point being, that workforce is out there. Right. And we want to keep growing it. So what can we do?

So that's on the contractor side, and there's also those that participate in the trades in other places that we want to also bring in. This is an opportunity to have a good-paying job, and so we want to expand that because we're seeing this throughout. We're talking about the labor shortage. It's not just in this industry, but you certainly can include the construction industry in all those that we need to make sure that we're developing and training people to come in and work and take these very good-paying jobs to help us to be successful with this program.

Right. And I was referring to targeted hiring preferences.

So we are talking about that.

And this is really great for IIJA to say, yes, we're going to allow you the flexibility and the opportunity to have targeted hiring preferences, local hiring preferences. So that's a newer. Right. It is opportunity. So that's why I'm like, how are we really going to take advantage of that?

We think it is an opportunity and it's one that, how we do it, I think is what we're talking about right now. So with the opportunity that comes from IIJA, particularly in the local hires, and of course it's what is local. So there are things that we need to determine and certainly, it's going to be specific to where the jobs are, sorry, where the projects are, and then the jobs associated with that. And so how do you determine what exactly that goal is?

But we believe it's an opportunity that we're exploring now to look at how can we find ways to. The communities that are seeing the projects certainly want to participate. So we're just talking about how can I have jobs that are local. This is one way in which we can help to provide that opportunity.

So on other issues, last year we got high road labor standards on a zero-emission school bus contracts, about a billion and a half dollars. And then we also were successful in getting SB 674 signed and it applies high road jobs to zero-emission transit and charging stations. Right.

So again, going back to the subject of non-construction jobs, manufacturing, maintenance, services, and operations, can Caltrans suggest ways for this framework to be applied to other transportation investments? There's one example, a billion and a half in zero-emission school bus contracts. What other ways do you envision applying that as far as the transportation investment?

Yes, and I don't know that I have a complete answer for you at this point.

But there are, whether it's the suppliers that are coming in, maintaining the systems that are put in place, even the Buy America components that we have as we transition industry, that the supply chain becomes back and is onshored, finding ways that we're creating those job opportunities that are going to feed into the transportation investments because there are those secondary types of jobs that come beyond those that are out there pouring the concrete and things like that.

So let me just end by saying having, working, including workforce development, does not mean that we get the job standards that we should have. And especially in non-construction, as I said earlier. Right. There is the practice, there is the familiarity with the ways in which construction jobs can be high road, good-paying jobs and careers. We don't have the experience in doing the same thing with non-construction jobs.

So I really think that if, and we talk about this a lot, it has to be deliberate, it has to be intentional, and it has to come from, okay, from the beginning, from the start. This has to be part of our program. This has to be part of what we push out. If we don't, then it just falls off the radar and we have to make sure that there's enforceable job commitments, there's enforceable quality apprenticeship and training programs.

But more importantly, what are those standards when it comes to the kinds of jobs that we're doing? So I just want to present that to you, but let's not let it fall off the radar here and it very easily does. So counting on you all to keep raising that as a very critical part of how we move forward. Thank you.

Senator, I want to share that. I think we've been talking about performance metrics, accountability. One of the reason why transit operators are in this situation that they're in right now has been because one of the state's primary performance targets for transit operators has been relying on fares to cover their costs.

And so when ridership fell out with COVID stay-at-home orders, places like BART were not able to have the resources to keep their systems operating to the standard that helps maintain that safe, efficient, clean, and reliable service. So when the Federal Government came in with their COVID emergency resources for transit operators, they were really clear.

We expect the goals for these funds are to keep people employed and to keep service running for essential workers who need to get from point A to point B and for transit-dependent people who need to take the bus to go to the grocery store. So transit operators took that really seriously. And one of the reasons we get asked why didn't you guys cut more money? Why didn't you guys save more money?

Because we didn't lay anybody off because that's what the feds told us was important to do. So now we're in a situation where we're looking at this operating fiscal cliff speaking, and in addition to looking at more important workforce standards on some of the capital pieces, it's going to be really important from a jobs perspective to be able to get the operating resources in to keep people employed that are driving the buses, that are driving the train cars, that are doing the maintenance work.

And that's a very typical performance standard that the feds put is making sure that you are keeping people with good, high-paying jobs. I think the other piece that comes with that, though, are the increased costs to do that from a labor force perspective. And so we look at the federal Bill, the IIJA Bill, BIL, gave us, the Bay Area, a 50% increase in our Transit Formula dollars.

Well, the state requirements related to zero-emission transition, the federal requirements related to Buy America, and then some of our own labor standards that we put in place means that we didn't get to buy very many buses, many more buses. Right. The buying power is really decreased. And so it's not to say I think those things are all very important and we need to be prioritizing them, but they do come at a cost.

And so it's really important as we think through and the Transit Association think through, what's the transit of the future? We're looking at how do we make this system safe, clean, effective, efficient, really good paying jobs that are safe, that make sure that people, and that people can get from point A to point B who are choice riders and who are people who don't have a choice. Yeah. You know, just frankly, doing that is going to take more resources to get that on the ground.

Great. Thank you so very much, Mr. Keever, Ms. Dohrmann, Mr. Higgins, thank you very much. This concludes our second panel. We appreciate you.

Now we're going to move on to our third and last panel, stakeholder perspectives. We're going to welcome Mr. Hector Huezo from the California Director from Jobs to Move America, Mark Watts, advocate for Transportation California, and Zach Accuardi, senior transportation advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Welcome. And when ready, we will begin with Mr. Huezo.

Thank you Co-Chairs Durazo and Gonzalez, and esteemed Members of the Committee and Subcommitee. My name is Héctor Huezo with Jobs to Move America. We're a national organization headquartered in Los Angeles. We work to ensure that public investment in climate and infrastructure actually results in high-quality, high-road job and training opportunities, particularly for working families, women, folks coming out of incarceration and other sort of disadvantaged workers. Over the past 10 years, we've developed policies and tools that are concrete and ready to implement now, to ensure that public agencies tasked with administering IIJA funds or state funds or other federal dollars are getting the most possible job creation and equity outcomes through that process. The clearest example of this relates to our work in the transit sector, where we've been able to transform the electric bus manufacturing industry over the last several years using a tool called the US Employment Plan.

This USEP can be used on competitive procurements and it allows public agencies to ask private firms who are competing for public contracts, tax breaks, grant programs, to make specific commitments for the number of jobs that they'll create, their planned wages and benefits, and any other commitments to community and labor partnerships, workforce programs, and inclusive hiring initiatives for disadvantaged workers. Then, when firms are selected, their commitments become part of their contract. And this is a huge accountability component here.

It becomes part of their contract deliverables, and there's quarterly reporting to report on tracking of hiring, recruiting and training, along with any of the other regular milestones that the awarding agency requires. So by simply asking for this information upfront and using it as part of the criteria to assess job creation, public agencies are able to make strategic decisions about how our public dollars are or aren't being used to create quality job opportunities, especially for workers from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This practice is a game changer, primarily because when public agencies communicate up front to prospective firms that they're going to be evaluated on job quality and wages, the industry meets that demand, they rise to the occasion, and they put forth their sort of best proposals on family sustaining wages and benefits.

This is exactly the kind of transformative outcome that we've been pushing in transit, where now four of the nation's top six electric vehicle electric bus manufacturers have some kind of partnership with labor, a cutting edge training program, are making investments in their workforce, where five years ago there was only one kind of medium sized company doing anything like that.

So given that IIJA increases resources to existing transportation infrastructure programs while also creating new ones, the opportunity before you all to adopt tools like the US employment plan, which already conforms to federal spending rules, is a way for state agencies to prioritize and operationalize job quality and equity as part of this once-in-a-generation set of public investments.

And so I want to quickly just sort of go over some of the initiatives and state agencies that we've been working with to include similar US Employment Plan-like provisions. As Senator Durazo mentioned earlier, last year, Governor Newsom signed SB 674 into law, which permits the Department of Transportation, Department of General Services to ask for these kinds of commitments as part of their contracting process.

But just because the agencies are sort of permitted to do this, doesn't ipso facto mean that those asks, those conditions are going to make it onto an actual procurement or an RFP. It's important that these provisions be implemented in a strong way. In 2021, the California Energy Commission used similar US Employment Plan-like language on a zero emissions manufacturing grant, and the outcome was great. Two California union companies were awarded funds to build out battery manufacturing capacity right here in the state.

Also in 2021, the state Workforce Development Board awarded two high road training partnership programs to develop apprenticeship pathways and training pathways into electric vehicle manufacturing. Programs like the HRTP often go further by requiring formalized agreements between industry and groups that represent workers and community as sort of part of their process.

So this opportunity to comprehensively sort of tie together some of the best practices that are being piloted currently with state agencies, along with commitment, a directive commitment from this body and the Legislature to use bold standards like the US employment plan together would go a long way towards ensuring that IJA and any additional state money or other federal resources support cleaner and more resilient infrastructure without leaving behind working families. Looking forward to taking questions on that, but those are the statements I came prepared to share.

Thank you very much, Mr. Huezo. Now we'll move on next to Mr. Watts from Transportation California.

I'm unfamiliar. Is that carrying over? Okay, thank you very much. So, first of all, good afternoon, Chair Gonzalez and Chair Durazo. I get this way in the afternoon, so I apologize. My name is Mark Watts with Transportation California. Our organization represents the transportation industry and the workforce that builds, repairs and maintains the mobility system for California. A little bit of history I'm going to add here, because I thought it may give our end result or end point a little bit more poignancy.

Our history as an organization dates back to '89, when we passed the doubling of the gas tax, Prop 111. That was our first major victory. We later had some victories with Prop 192 and other seismic bonds that were needed in the wake of a couple of those earthquakes. We also were the ones who founded Prop 42, or found or developed it and enacted it on the ballot.

Prop 1B, which was the bond act in 2006, and SB 1, was the turning point for where we went from build it, build it, build it, to repair it, repair it, repair it. So when I get to the bottom line of my presentation, that overview will make more sense. But at the outset, I want to thank or express our appreciation for how Congress and the federal government developed the foresight to enact this infrastructure package.

Their commitment to executing the infrastructure legislation not only resulted in a lot of money, as we've heard here today, being fed into the infrastructure system, but it also brought the enactment of the five year reauthorization of the surface transportation program. This latter fact will provide states, localities, and private sector industry and workforce with a better ability to plan and prepare for the delivery of more robust and transformative programs. I think without that stable five year enactment, we would not have the ability to do that.

We'd be doing bust and boom funding and transportation. We do believe that such a heightened level of program delivery options and funding certainty, which is a key aspect of the IIJA, will be very important to provide an opportunity to strategically leverage state and local funds as well. There are many policy items that you are exploring here today, but I wanted to give you a little bit of a different thought, although it's not as different as it would have been if I hadn't been following Mr. Higgins.

This is a very important feature of Transportation California board's priority for the next five years. And essentially, we think that the policymakers and the state's leadership need to take advantage of IIJA and what it represents for Californians and use it or view it as somewhat of a bridge to the future. We think we need to. We're developing the growing urgency to find a replacement for fuel taxes as we continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

Transit and not transit, I'm sorry, the replacement for the fuel taxes leans on the RUC, the road user charge. Our organization sponsored Congressman DeSaulnier's first Bill when he was the Chair of Senate Transit in 2014. We were also sponsors of Mr. Bill's extension, and we collaborated with Senator Wiener in his extension. So we are all in on trying to find a replacement. If the Legislature and the Administration find that there's a different pathway, we're going to go help them do that.

But right now we see this as something that has got to be in place, because I think we're seeing the acceleration of the adaptation of electric vehicles and the electrification of the mobility, and as a result, we need to be in place with something that's different than the fuel tax. I'll stop at that point. But I would also just conclude by thanking Chair Gonzalez for allowing your office to work with our office and Streets for All in carrying the Bill for SB 695. Pardon me.

Thank you so much, Mr. Watts. I appreciate that, and I look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

And Mr. Accuardi, we'll go to you next. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you all for having me. Good afternoon, Committee Chairs, Committee Members, staff, everyone else who is sticking it out, still here this afternoon. And thanks again for having me here today. I'm Zak Accuardi, Senior Transportation Advocate with NRDC. Before jumping into the fascinating and slightly esoteric details of federal transportation infrastructure funding, the first thing I just wanted to share on a personal level with you all is that I learned how to ride a bike when I was about six years old.

It's one of my clearest memories from being that age, wobbling down the sidewalk with one of my best friends and two of our parents, all egging each other on. What the bicycle gave me starting in my adolescent years, and what public transit has given me since for decades, is a freedom of movement. Just as important as the freedom of movement, what it's given me is the incredible privilege of living without car debt, a privilege that has allowed me to spend more time seeing my family who live far away, to pay for necessary health care for my family and myself, to save money for retirement, to eat well, to see more art. Everyone deserves to experience freedom of movement that is safe, affordable, and they also deserve the freedom from the harmful pollution that fossil fueled vehicles produce. My take home messages today are pretty straightforward.

The California Legislature's budget and policy decisions will largely determine whether the infrastructure law implementation in California either accelerates or undermines California's climate progress. As such, the Legislature must take a more active role in setting policy direction and investment priorities for California's transportation agencies. Senator Blakespear, your questions about accountability, very poignant there.

Thankfully, federal statutes give you, as the state's elected leaders a variety of powerful tools to bring California's transportation investment priorities into alignment with our state's values, so many of which we've discussed today: climate equity, job creation, economic opportunity, and safety from physical harm. Recent research from the Georgetown Climate center has shown that state transportation spending will determine whether the infrastructure law helps or hurts climate progress nationally. Then the same is true in California.

Put simply, the degree to which the infrastructure law supports the state's climate goals is dependent on whether we spend that money on expanding highways and roads, or whether we invest it in public transit, complete streets, EV charging infrastructure and community-centered mobility programs. These funds are temporary. It's a one time large infusion, and the clock is ticking to make sure that we put those funds to the best use.

While all of our implementing agencies, CalSTA, CTC, Caltrans, all of the MPOs, all of the counties and local governments, they all hold essential expertise as implementing agencies. And all of them, including our state agencies, are making admirable progress. But collectively, they're not making changes at the pace or the scale necessary to preserve alignment with our climate and equity goals. They're not making changes that are necessary to preserve and improve our air quality and community health.

These agencies are also struggling to ensure that state investments are guided by inclusive community engagement that allows most impacted communities to co-create solutions to their most pressing problems. We need you as our elected leaders to take a more active role prioritizing how we spend this money if we're serious about these goals. Thankfully, you have a lot of discretion, and federal rules have evolved over time to give states and their agencies more flexibility in how we allocate transportation funds.

Most recently, the infrastructure law included a provision adding EV charging infrastructure, for example, to eligible expenses for some of the major federal formula funding programs. Well, we can talk more about this, but there are a few clear and concrete steps that you all can take to bring clean transportation projects to the front of the line for state funding.

First, you have the opportunity to flex funding, and I think that was also you, Senator Blakespear, who referenced that as a term of art, and I've been learning a lot more about it. You can direct your agencies to flex funding from one highway formula program to another. The National Highway Performance program is very restrictive and it's the biggest source of federal formula funds. You have the authority to tell your agencies to flex more of that funding into, for example, the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program.

You can flex up to 50% of eligible funds from one formula program to another. The Surface Transportation Block Grant Program gives agencies considerable--and the Legislature--considerably more flexibility of how to spend those funds. And it was designed starting in the early in its predecessor program, which was started in the early 90s to give states more flexibility to spend these funds on projects to align more closely with the state goals.

A second form of flexing that you can do is flexing funding from highway programs into transit programs. California already does this, largely thanks to leadership from California MPOs. Roughly 10% of eligible funds in California are currently flexed from highway to transit accounts. Especially while we have this short term boost in funding, you should ask state agencies to send more funding to transit as, for all the reasons that we've heard so much about today. This will accelerate transit project delivery in regions throughout the state.

It will enable counties throughout the state to grow in a more sustainable, more inclusive way and a way that reduces traffic. We'd like to see the state increase the share of highway funding flex to transit in general and starting with a commitment of flexing 20% of eligible funds this year, a rate that would make California a national leader in this important practice.

And third, this isn't flexing the way that the federal government talks about it, but this is a way to use the flexibility that you have. You can direct Caltrans and the state to fund the Active Transportation Program, the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, EV charging infrastructure investments and beyond with funds from the federal formula programs.

And all of this, of course, needs to be complemented by finding a way to address the fiscal cliff that public and transit agencies face, which I'm not focusing on in my comments today because we're talking about the infrastructure law, but they are interconnected in an important way. Suffice it to say, all the new transit infrastructure in the world doesn't do much good if you don't have the staff to operate it.

Finally, many of you are surely familiar with the Biden administration's Justice40 Initiative, sets a goal that 40% of overall benefits of federal investments flow to projects in or that directly benefit disadvantaged communities. As state leaders, you also have the power to ensure that that goal is realized in California. There's precedent for this in certain transportation programs. The Active Transportation Program sets the threshold for investments in disadvantaged communities, and so do several of our kind of landmark zero emissions vehicle programs.

But we have to do more to ensure that this influx of federal funds, and ultimately all of the state's transportation investments, are prioritized to this challenge, an invitation from the Biden Administration. As we've been reminded by repeated and ongoing flooding in the state these past several weeks, Californians are already suffering from the impacts of climate change. Supporting continued highway expansions would continue to pour more fuel on our own wildfires.

Our own state agencies have raised the alarm that our current transportation policies and investments priorities are generating more and wider roads, generating more traffic, more pollution, and exacerbating existing inequities. We aren't building more coal fired power plants in California, and we shouldn't be building new highways. They don't align with our state's values, they fail to deliver on the promise of reducing traffic. And like coal power plants, they don't make financial sense.

It's time to recognize that the state highway network is complete and refocus the state's attention on building out similarly robust statewide networks to support public transit: walking, biking and zero emission vehicle infrastructure. This infrastructure law is an opportunity again to align our investment decisions with our priorities, perhaps for the first time in many decades. The alternative would sound a lot like a common definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Accuardi. That concludes our third panel. So I thank you again for joining us. And we're going to go on to questions, and we'll start with Senator Durazo. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I probably may have to leave right in the middle of asking this question, but if Mr. Huezo could just take a couple of minutes, a minute or two to talk about the LA Metro Manufacturing Careers Policy. Are you familiar enough to talk about that?

Absolutely.

Okay. As I understand, the reason I ask is because it's the first major transit agency in the nation to incorporate a policy for manufacturing in the procurement process.

Yes. And it's the country's second largest transit agency. It's also no stranger to having to administer federal funds and use the rules and segregating of funds and programs to ensure that they're doing that correctly.

And so this policy is focused specifically on contracting with companies who, as part of the procurement process, are disclosing the number of jobs that they're going to create, the wages and benefits that they will pay, and they are competing with each other on job quality, allowing for LA Metro to then compare wages and benefits and use that to make a decision on which contract is going to sort of create the most economic benefit regionally in the state or in the country.

And so LA Metro has implemented the strongest version of this policy to date, and other agencies have used similar language. But the latest version that LA Metro has implemented includes new worker provisions to ensure that any non-compliance with this policy results in back wages or mis-recorded wages to be paid back to workers, which is incredibly huge win for working people in LA county.

You're still in charge until you need to somewhere. I was just, I have this in case you have to go. Is that?

Oh, okay. Well, then you are tape.

Okay. All right. Were there other questions you wanted to ask?

No.

Okay.

Shut it down.

Okay. Shut it down. I'm hearing you. All right. Thank you so much, panel, I really do appreciate your coming to help shed some more light on all these issues. And we got a lot of challenges on our hands here, so thank you. Yes.

I did want to ask, I guess, Zak, as a transportation, transit rider, a fellow transit rider, what are you, hearing all the discussions about, how to make the experience of riding transit more attractive to average Californians and not just those who, you know, not just those who have no choice and. And also how to make it better for those who have no choice? What are some things that you've been hearing that we ought to be considering as we try to make that experience better for riders?

Yeah. Thank you. There has been some really helpful research the past several years about what is it exactly that brings and keeps people riding transit. A couple of people have alluded to this idea of kind of in the transit industry, captive or choice riders. It's often the language, and I don't love it. But some of the research tells us a couple of things that I think are.

I don't love it for so many reasons. I mean, I think for the obvious ones. But the other thing is, it suggests that there are blocks. Right? I mean, there are a lot of working people who are struggling like crazy just to be able to afford a car because the transit experience has been so dissatisfying when we should be providing them with a better transit experience so that they don't have to be stressed out about making car payments. But anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt.

No, that's absolutely right. And that's something that this research sheds some light on, including why this idea of kind of riders with and without choice falls apart under a little bit of scrutiny. Because a lot of riders who do depend on public transit to get to their jobs, to access their communities, would much prefer to have a car, given how challenging it can be to depend on transit.

And so they may not have a choice today, but in the next couple of years, when they get a better job, they will have a choice. So how do we make it a system that people want to ride? And the answers are pretty simple. Fast transportation, affordable, reliable, frequent service, safe. Safe obviously means different things to different people. It's very context dependent. Programs like the LA Metro Transit Ambassador Program that was discussed earlier are very promising, but very much in their early days.

That Transit Ambassador Program at LA Metro just launched. So that funding that's supporting it, we don't know how effective it's going to be. We genuinely don't know. But it's a really promising idea. BART has had a lot of success in running a similar program. And we've also discussed how intertwined the housing affordability crisis is, including with the safety and security issues on our transit systems. And so it's important that we hold the kind of interconnectedness of these issues together when we're thinking about, especially how to prioritize investments.

One thing that I'll say just in terms of some of the state levers here are the way that the state approaches transit priority on the state highway network is really important in terms of creating an enabling fast and frequent service, dedicated right of way bus lanes, more or less, or high occupancy vehicle lanes that include transit, and meeting transit agencies where they are to provide them both funding support and sometimes convening and capacity building support that is necessary, that the state can play a unique role in supporting. Both of those things are important.

Mr. Chair, may I? One last point where there's a challenge to providing quality service is in big freeway corridors where you have express buses and they cannot get to the HOV lane or the express lane.

Or just to merge over to the...

Yeah, and so they're stuck going the same speed as the clogged freeway. So there's been an evolution in thought, and it's not brilliant, but to use bus on shoulder, and there are technical ways to make it available. You keep a speed limit on the bus, but we can't seem to get that into the

CHP always hates that.

Yeah.

My office...

Yeah. But I think there's ways to do it that are starting to emerge. So I'd like to start the conversation at some point in the future, in the next year or two, about how we do that, because I think that's going to help a lot of people make that choice. If you're in Riverside, before they finish that express lane coming into Orange County, Corona riders would have to go over on a bus like that, shift over. They now have a direct connector. So the bus, you load up and you get right into the express lane. So just food for thought.

Yeah.

Thank you, Senator Allen. Thank you. And just a couple questions to conclude here for Mr. Huezo. Thank you so much for your presentation. We had some reforms last year through Senator Durazo, who brought forward some great discussions on high roads jobs, for transportation with your support. But are there any other states that we can learn additional best practices from as it pertains to, you know, obviously, what we're discussing now, and the jobs, and actually being very mindful in ensuring that these funds actually are applied to the jobs that we actually want here in California.

I appreciate that question. In a lot of ways, California is actually leading much of the nation on a lot of these investments. I think, you know, an example I was prepared to highlight was LA Metro, which recently just sort of passed a beefed up version of the US Employment Plan, which the Senator Durazo asked about. But I think something else to consider is that IIJA and lots of the other sort of federal investments, maybe outside the scope of this discussion.

But IIJA and these other investments can also support these kinds of purchasing policies on other types of manufactured equipment. So think about the onshore and offshore wind componentry, smart water meters for water resiliency, transportation infrastructure, and the vehicles themselves. This policy is really designed to sort of ensure that we can get the most out of job quality in the manufacturing sector. And there's more to look at outside of just transportation that we think we have proof of concept for.

That's great. Well, we look forward to continuing our work with you. Thank you very much. And then my last question is actually for Mr. Accuardi and Mr. Watts. First, Mr. Accuardi, on the Justice 40 and what more we can do. I know there have been obviously some legislation in the past, and federal government, obviously, has been pushing this initiative to ensure that disadvantaged communities are prioritized and that we're actually providing this funding in an equitable manner. So what more can California do on Justice 40?

What more can we legislate on? How can we continue to prioritize these most disadvantaged communities? But in my opinion, some of these communities that really need these investments the most.

Yeah, I'll try to keep it brief. Our partners at the Greenlining Institute have been working on a bill, I think, with Assembly Member Bonta's office, AB 1525. That's one that I would recommend looking at and following, if you aren't already. It would, my understanding is, do basically two things.

One is to set a target threshold for investments in disadvantaged communities, and two, to establish some kind of procedural guidelines and guardrails that are intended to avoid a kind of outcome which is a reasonably high risk in the transportation sector, which is saying, okay, we want to target transportation infrastructure and disadvantaged communities, and that being interpreted as we want to widen a highway through an environmental justice community that's already suffering dramatically from pollution burdens, especially in heavy duty freight corridors.

You might be describing my district.

Like those in Los Angeles and Long Beach. And so it's really important as we set those. It wouldn't be enough in transportation to say we need these investments to be in disadvantaged communities. Because there is often not consensus among all stakeholders in those communities about what actually would serve the needs of the people who are most impacted by the investment. So that part is really important to grapple with, and it's a challenge to grapple with.

This bill is attempting to do that, and I think it's a really promising effort. The other thing that I think is really important to be paying attention to is the need for capacity building and staff at the state, in Caltrans especially, for actually doing inclusive community engagement work. And what does that mean? That means, okay, Caltrans employs a lot of engineers. We need those engineers. We need engineering and technical expertise.

But Caltrans also needs people who have training as community organizers, who have training as equity practitioners, who know how to design a community engagement process that results in projects and programs that are genuinely and authentically created in partnership with the communities who are going to be most impacted by these investments. That's a technical expertise that Caltrans and most public agencies do not have and need to be building with a lot more intentionality.

So I'd invite you to consider, when you're seeing funding requests from Caltrans and from their partner agencies, to be in dialogue with them about what resources they need to be able to do that better, to give funding to community based organizations in these communities, to contract with them, to employ them as partners, so that they can be at the table through the project and development and programming process.

Great. Thank you very much for that. And, Mr. Watts, just to build off of that, knowing that I'm even, as a State Senator, trying to get clear on what the next phase of highways mean for all of us. Right? And the safety, the maintenance, yes.

But what this means for our disadvantaged communities and how transportation California can play a role in connecting with our friends in the EJ communities to envision a future that is less polluting and that is more prioritizing more of our disadvantaged communities, but also ensuring that we get things done. Big question, but I want to make sure you...

Let me think about that. But my initial reaction is, something like that is going on in your district with one of my clients, the Gateway COG. There's folks trying to figure out what to do with the 710 now that the state's walked away from it, essentially. And so that's a process that's underway. I think there's a real value in the reconnecting communities concept, and I think that's something I know our folks can get behind.

And it's not just tearing down a freeway, it's how do you weave it back together so that the community has access across the way. I think that's probably the basis of a process. I think we need some, I'm going to need traditional research, but I think best practices across the country as this new phenomenon starts to grow.

The first time I read about what happened in Buffalo and their experience there and watched how the change made things so much better, that made me more of a believer in terms of how my organization could support that kind of activity. I think in the old days they would have abhorred the idea of tearing down anything. But I think now that's something that, in terms of the reconnecting, is important.

And I think you could do it in such a way, particularly in communities along the coast, or other areas of the heat, problems in the central valley. You could start to connect it with some of the adaptation issues and start putting money into those kind of programs. I think the heart of this would really be, I'm going to sound so awful, task force. Have a task force that brings in organizations to start spitballing this. It's something that bears deep, deep and extended thought before we just turn it loose. I'm having a rough day. I'm sorry.

No, you're doing great. This is fantastic. Thank you very much. And I think where we can align is the reconnecting of communities and figuring out the new future of what transportation could look like on our highway systems.

Okay.

No, please, go ahead.

I was going to say there's one last thought. There's an issue I worked on a long time ago in San Diego. It was the decking of the 163. And I know that there's a strong interest in San Diego in another segment to do the same thing. You end up with a park on top of it. It's the opposite of reconnecting. It's rejoining and providing recreational and healthy activities. So I'll stop there. Thank you.

Well, that's great. You're giving us the vision of what could be. So I thank you all. I don't think there's any other questions. Senator Allen? I just wanted to make sure. Okay, well, that concludes our last panel. Thank you so much, Mr. Huezo, Mr. Accuardi, Mr. Watts, I appreciate you being here, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. So now it's time to hear from the public. For members who would like to call in, you can do so now. And we'll make sure to include the toll free number. It is 877-226-8163, and the access code is 736-2834. Again, that is access code 736-2834. Before going to callers, let's begin with any witnesses here in the Room 1200. Anyone who would like to testify, please come forward, and we'll take your testimony and comments. And you have 1 minute, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Marisa Garcia, and I'm here on behalf of Move LA. We urge you to support and fund a fare-free student transit pass program as proposed in AB 610. There are few other uses of public funds, especially of our greenhouse gas reduction funds, like a fare-free transit pass program that can help us to achieve so many goals important to Californians. AB 610 investments will put money into transit agencies facing a fiscal cliff while putting riders into empty seats.

It will invest in VMT reduction, fighting climate change in one of the areas of the scoping plan in greatest need of support, while investing in cleaning our air. AB 610 will help rebuild lagging enrollment in our schools and enable our lowest income students to afford to go to college and fulfill their educational dreams. At 180 million over two years, you will look long and hard for an investment program that accomplishes so many different goals using so little funding. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else who'd like to testify in person here in Room 1200? Okay, seeing none. So we'll move two witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service. Moderator, please prompt the individuals waiting to testify via the teleconference service.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to testify, press one, then zero on your telephone keypad. An operator will gather your line number and place you back into the queue. Our first comment comes from line number 26. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, my name is Francesca Wander. I am a voting constituent in Sacramento, and I am speaking in support of expanding public transit. After moving to Sacramento three years ago, I was absolutely shocked by the suburban sprawl. I lived 5 miles from work. If I want to take public transit to work, it takes me an hour and a half.

That is simply insanity that we should be so dependent upon our cars and our freeways to get around our neighborhoods and to get work. It is bad for the environment. It's bad for low income individuals who can't afford cars, and certainly those individuals certainly can't afford electric vehicles. So we have got to prioritize expanding public transit and making it accessible and available and safe for all Californians. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments. Next comment, please.

Next comment comes from line number 23. Please go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Good afternoon. My name is David Fenn, Senior Planner with the City of West Hollywood. Thank you for your comments on the importance of maximizing federal transportation funding. In addition to grant programs, the infrastructure bill also included a provision allowing federal TIFIA loans to extend for a longer 75 year term for some projects. As we work to develop a multibillion dollar local funding package for the northern extension of the Metro K Line, which will one day be the highest capacity light rail line in the nation.

We're pursuing legislation to allow state value capture tools like enhanced infrastructure financing districts to take advantage of this longer term, but don't yet have an author. We have shared our proposal with Chair Gonzalez's office and hope to partner with you all in bringing state law into alignment with this new federal loan provision. A longer term means lower payments for local governments and a longer time period for tax increment revenues from new transit oriented development to build up after lengthy construction.

If you or any of your colleagues might be interested in sponsoring a bill to make value capture and federal financing more feasible for local governments around our state, please reach out to us. Thank you for your work in this area, and we'll share our proposal with your Committee staff with our contact information. Thanks again.

Thank you very much. Next comment, please.

Next comment will come from the line number 30. Please go ahead.

Hello, this is Jamie Pew. I am commenting today on behalf of NextGen California. NextGen's Climate 100 initiative aims at California's budget toward tackling climate change across government functions, and transportation is responsible for around half of our state's annual emissions. As you know, CARB is unequivocal in its latest scoping plan that reaching our decarbonization goals will require us to reduce car dependence pretty substantially. We fully support Mr. Accuardi's testimony earlier today.

In particular, we want to emphasize the opportunity that you, as a Legislature, have to leverage federal transportation funds to invest in revitalizing California's transit systems operations, especially by flexing eligible funds away from freeway capacity expansions and similar projects, and towards climate smart infrastructure. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next comment, please.

Next comment is from line number 28. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Zack Deutsch-Gross. I'm the Policy Director at TransForm. TransForm promotes walkable communities with excellent transportation choices to connect people of all incomes to opportunity across California. I'm calling in today to second the call for flexing funding to prioritize transit and active transportation. This is a fundamental equity and climate issue.

At a time of budget deficit where the Governor's budget proposes cuts to vital programs, access transportation, and TIRCP funding, IIJA provides a lifeline for us to reinvest in walkable, transit oriented communities that support equity and climate. Over half a million people in California do not own a car, and 60% of transit riders are low income. At the same time, we know we need to double transit coverage and service in the coming years to meet our climate goals.

So I hope Members of this Committee will consider flexing funding to support these vital programs to address the fiscal cliffs and create walkable, bikeable and transit friendly communities for all. Thank you.

Thank you. Next comment, please.

Well, once again, if you have a question or comment, please press one, then zero on your telephone keypad. We will go to line number 31. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Jean Tepperman. I'm from the Sunflower Alliance, a Bay Area climate justice organization. I'm here to support you in using as much as possible of the federal money for the public transit agencies to prevent devastating service cuts when they reach that fiscal cliff, and also to commit to a major multiyear increase in state funding for public transit. We can't meet our climate goals by just switching private cars from gas to electric.

Our current level of dependence on private cars, all along the lifecycle from manufacturer to maintenance, operation and infrastructure, is a massive waste of public and personal resources, source of GHG and pollution and land-use disaster. Please don't use any of this money to expand highways. After needed road repairs, we should use as much as possible of these federal funds to maintain, expand, and improve public transit to create a convenient, accessible, sustainable system that meets everybody's needs better.

Thank you very much for your comments. Next comment, please.

We have no further comments.

Okay, thank you all to everyone who testified in person and on the teleconference line. We very much value your comments, and we will certainly take them to heart and provide additional comments when need be. But if you're not able to testify in either way, through teleconference or in person, please ensure that you submit your comments or suggestions directly in writing to the Senate Transportation Committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions, as mentioned, have been very important to us. We appreciate your participation and this meeting and hearing is adjourned. Thank you all to the panelists as well. Appreciate you.