Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood provided emphatic testimony on March 8 supporting the administration’s DOT budget request for Fiscal Year 2012 before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

The FY 2012 transportation budget request totals $129 billion, LaHood said, and includes the first year of a six-year, $556 billion surface transportation authorization plan. It incorporates a $50 billion “up-front” economic boost designed to jumpstart job creation through improvements to the nation’s transit, highway, rail, and aviation systems.

“America is at a transportation crossroads,” the secretary said. “That is why President Obama called on the nation to repair our existing roadways, bridges, railways, and runways and to build new transportation systems—including a national high-speed intercity rail network—which will safely and efficiently move people and goods.”

LaHood explained the four broad goals of the transportation authorization proposal: building for the future, spurring innovation, ensuring safety, and reforming government and exercising responsibility.

“For too long we have put off the improvements needed to keep pace with today’s transportation needs,” LaHood testified. “If we settle for the status quo, our next generation of entrepreneurs will find America’s arteries of commerce impassably clogged and our families and neighbors will fight paralyzing congestion.” He explained that the administration’s proposal addresses this challenge in three ways: through the creation of a national high-speed rail network funded with $53 billion over six years; $336 billion over six years for road and bridge improvements and construction; and $119 billion over six years for “affordable, efficient, and sustainable transit options.”

Innovations include a $32 billion competitive grant program called the Transportation Leadership Awards to recognize states and local governments that demonstrate transformational policy solutions.

As part of the focus on safety, LaHood noted, the administration’s proposal grants rail transit safety oversight to the Federal Transit Administration.

He described how the authorization proposal consolidates and streamlines the current federal public transportation and highway programs, merging six transit programs into one “state of good repair” program and one focusing on “specialized transportation.” It also provides for the conversion of the current system of more than 50 separate highway programs into five new categories.