Brian Schatz Grills Transportation Secretary Duffy On Timeline Of Reviews For Paused Grants

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) questioned Secretary Sean Duffy about the timeline for reviewing paused DoT grants.

Transcript

00:00Senator Schatz. Thank you, Secretary. Thank you, Chair and Vice Chair and to the

00:05Lilly family. Thank you for your presence and I'm sorry for your loss. I want to

00:09follow up on the the 3,200 or so grants frozen. I understand that if the if the

00:17grant had if the award has been made and the money has been obligated that you're

00:21not freezing those dollars. You are pausing for review. I'm trying to get the

00:26terminology right. Post-announcement pre-obligation to kind of pull out those

00:33things that you consider to be extraneous to transportation. Am I

00:37characterizing that about right? There's no freeze but yes we're

00:42pausing for review. I'm not pausing with this so what it to kind of to kind of

00:46sure so what I'm doing is as I'm as I'm crafting the grant agreement some of the

00:52language that was required in the NOFO it's easy we just don't put it in the

00:56grant agreement so it's not it's not a pause it's it's not a freeze it's just

00:59we've taken the language out for the grant agreement. Sure good news bad news right

01:03you're characterizing this as easy not terribly controversial it's a new

01:07administration you are within your rights to modify grant criteria certainly

01:14before the money is obligated I understand all that the problem is time

01:18right we are we are about four months into this or a little less than four

01:21months into this and there are a bunch of things that are just like plainly not

01:26climate right evacuation routes like hillside stabilization and so my my more

01:32basic question is I know you care about metrics I know your team is trying to

01:38metabolize all of these what what's the throughput capacity of the department to

01:43get these 3200 grants reviewed and obligated and out are you is it 300 a

01:51month I would excuse me 300 a week is it do you think you're gonna be done by June

01:54what's the time frame because that it's a little bit of a black box this is

01:59information this hearings useful because it gives us some reassurance that you

02:02know they're not actually stopped but I think it's fair for our state

02:07departments of transportation to kind of know it's gonna be June before it's done

02:11it's gonna be next week it could be later this year what can you give us a sense

02:15for timing so I appreciate the question I think that's a really good question so

02:19that I've told you we've done over 400 at this pace which I'm proud of the pace

02:25that we have done thus far it is not fast enough if it if again this is gonna this

02:31is gonna take us multiple years at this pace to get it done so that is

02:35unacceptable and I've I have countless meetings every week about how we can

02:41speed up the process to get more money out the door more grant agreements done

02:44so I take your point I am proud of the work we've done so far but the mission is

02:49to pick it up dramatically yeah and at some point you do you run into a

02:55potential even if it's inadvertent you on and you run into an impoundment issue right

03:00you have to spend these dollars and especially since the grant awards were given and the

03:05the state departments of transportation sometimes county departments of

03:08transportation they they have to spend money to gear up for contract

03:11management you've got staging costs so this is not free to do so I just really

03:18do encourage you not just to pick up the pace as a sort of generic proposition but

03:22to get get back to members of the House and the Senate on a bipartisan basis to

03:26say you know this is where we're gonna get and by when so speaking of which

03:34I want to cover one other thing in the kind of I call it de-woke-ifying stuff

03:39can I just on the on the impound like I'm not trying to impound anything I know you're

03:42what I'm trying so if there's money that's about to run out I'm trying to move that I'm

03:46trying to elevate that and move that more quickly so you don't lose dollars sure and

03:50I you and I had a brief conversation about bikes yes and then you would you the

03:56department issued additional guidance on bike infrastructure and I just this is this is

04:01like my I don't even ride a bike particularly often but I just think it's a

04:05little nuts that bikes have become some sort of like climate priority and

04:09therefore people who are right of center are like bikes are a climate thing

04:12bicycles are bicycles everybody rides a bike kids ride bikes families ride bikes

04:17every community rural red purple blue you know should have a safe way for people to

04:24ride bikes can we please take the question of utilizing bikes safely out of

04:29whatever fight we're going to have on a partisan basis about climate policy so I

04:33don't see bikes and climate together but I like bikes do bikes are wonderful my

04:37kids ride them okay can you review the the additional sort of restrictions or

04:42scrutiny that some of these bike projects have gotten so one of us to kind of

04:46explain my concern about if there was some of the requirements in the last

04:50administration was are you adding you know bike lanes and and walking paths to you

04:56know your construction project that's what they wanted to see and if there's

04:59some places across this country where we don't need bike lanes why are we

05:02adding bike lanes on to what should be you know just no one wants to ride a

05:06bike right yeah because I am on a time and there's a vote and some other

05:11members who want to talk but the the problem here right is everybody

05:15understands how this was done which is you have so many thousands of contracts

05:18people controlled F for certain words and so some bike projects are just bike

05:23projects some projects are adding criteria to a rail or pedestrian or car project to

05:32say and also you there's this new requirement but it's such a blunt instrument that you're

05:37blocking stuff that I think you and I on a common-sense basis would say yes we

05:41should do it and I'll take why I just want one more question which I'll get out and

05:44take for the record but the again on timeframes and let's get some specificity

05:52you got to do a bunch of things to upgrade the air traffic control system

05:56and including and especially the telecommunications upgrades if you could

06:00give us both some fidelity on costs what you anticipate asking the Congress for

06:07and also specifically the time frame for resolving the new work issues whether

06:12that's weeks or months or whatever I just think the traveling public needs to

06:16know exactly what that's going to be thank you if you want to call I'd be

06:19happy to talk more about bikes I don't think we're that far away on bike and bike

06:22usage I don't think we are I just think in the execution of some of these some

06:27of these procedures that we're we're talking past each other very well thank you

06:32senator

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