United States Department of Transportation

“ For fiscal year 2009, the Secretary of Transportation shall— (1) not distribute from the obligation limitation for Federal-aid highways amounts authorized for administrative expenses and programs by section 104 (a) of title 23, United States Code; programs funded from the administrative takedown authorized by section 104 (a) (1) of title 23, United States Code (as in effect on the date before the date of enactment of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users) ; the highway use tax evasion program; and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics ”

“ Funds appropriated or limited in this Act shall be subject to the terms and conditions stipulated in section 350 of Public Law 107-87 and section 6901 of Public Law 110-28, including that the Secretary submit a report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees annually on the safety and security of transportation into the United States by Mexico-domiciled motor carriers. ”

“ A military department may transfer any entitlement to charter air transportation services under paragraph (1) to any other military department or to any other agency, element, or component of the Department of Defense. ` (j) Definition- In this section, the term `charter air transportation' has the meaning given such term in section 40102 (14) of title 49, United States Code, except that it only means such transportation for which the Secretary of Defense has entered into a contract for the purpose of passenger travel. ”

“ And in this area, I think, transportation and the activities of transportation organizations have been one of those which they have observed and which has created perhaps as much controversy and concern as any other area of the State and Federal operations.' Hearings before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., on S. 1075, S. 237, and S. 1752, p. 76. ”

“ The motive power and cars thus freed from short-haul work can be employed in very important long-distance service. The Railroad Administration has indorsed motor transportation for this work and reported that this form of relief will make it possible for the railroads to operate more effectively under the present traffic congestion; hence shippers using the highways are assisting in the solution of transportation problems and rendering a patriotic service. ”

“ Any transportation plan or program developed pursuant to title 23 or chapter 53 of title 49 shall implement the transportation provisions of any applicable implementation plan approved under this chapter applicable to all or part of the area covered by such transportation plan or program. No Federal agency may approve, accept or fund any transportation plan, program or project unless such plan, program or project has been found to conform to any applicable implementation plan in effect under this chapter. ”

“ Every day, Americans rely on roads, rails, ports, and airports to get to work and to transport goods and services. At the same time, the United States Armed Forces rely on our transportation infrastructure to move personnel and supplies. During National Transportation Week and on National Defense Transportation Day, we underscore the importance of the transportation system to our Nation's economy and security. We also honor the dedicated professionals who build, maintain, and operate our transportation infrastructure. ”

“ The motor trucks transport less than carload lots of freight in complete coordination with the rail service. The railroad instituted this additional method of transportation in order to furnish an improved and more convenient freight service to the public in certain areas of light traffic and in order to curtail car mileage and way-freight service. Motor vehicle transportation, in other words, is merely a new method of carrying on part of its all-rail freight business in which it had been engaged for many years. ”

“ Research was one of the principal missions of the first national highway program in the United States and is, in fact, the oldest continuous Federal highway activity. The scope of federally conducted or assisted research encompasses all of the Federal highway programs and every facet of highway transportation—as a national resource and as a principal force in the social and economic well-being of the people and Government. ”

“ The Interstate System accounts for just over one percent of the total road mileage in the United States, yet it carries approximately 20 percent of the Nation's total traffic volume. Employing the most advanced highway safety designs ever devised, the Interstate System is one of the Nation's safest modes of transportation. ”

“ Congress has set that forth for us broadly in the declaration of policy [6] -in essence it is the regulation of transportation by motor carriers in the public interest so as to achieve adequate, efficient and economical service. To implement that policy Congress forbade common carriers by motor vehicle to operate in interstate commerce without securing a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the Commission, [7] and required contract carriers to secure a permit from that body. ”

“ It is the solution that seems best designed to achieve the purposes of the Act without interposing insurmountable obstacles to the effective regulation of the national transportation system, the responsibility for which rests, after all, predominantly with the Interstate Commerce Commission. ”

“ So many are familiar with the automobile—not as familiar, I believe, as they are going to be—that it seems hard to think it can work as revolutionary a change in their life as it is going to do. But I am perfectly certain that there abide these three elements of transportation—railway, water way, and highway—that they are one, and that none of them will reach its full value to the community without the other, and that each is the friend of the other. ”

“ The United States has the finest, safest transportation system in the world-superior highways and waterways, railroads, pipelines, and airports. This system unites a diverse Nation, provides economic opportunity, and enhances our quality of life by giving our citizens almost unrestricted mobility. ”

“ When a motor carrier seeks to offer service where only rail transportation is presently authorized, the inherent advantages of the proposed service are a critical factor which the Commission must assess. ”

“ Preparedness is proportionately of as much benefit to the individual as to the Nation, and if consideration is now given by the shippers to the few problems that may be confronting them in connection with highway transportation, they will be in a position to profit by this form of transportation when the needs arise.
It is the purpose of the Highways Transport Committee to bring about as quickly as possible an organization of return-load bureaus in all States where it will be beneficial to establish reciprocal relations. ”

“ It receives and transports from the one to the other, by its own engines, all freight cars, loaded and empty, and the freight they contain, offered to it by railroads, steamship companies, and industrial plants. The larger part of this traffic has its origin or destination in states other than California. For the transportation service, it makes a flat charge per car. ”

“ And after the railroad came, the waterway was all but destroyed, because we thought of transportation as a unity of railroads. Up to a very few years ago all of us who are not far-seeing would have thought of public transportation as meaning essentially the railroads. Yet so rapidly in the last five years has the law of transportation been developed that it is a little bit difficult for us to keep up with the rush of this movement. ”

“ The Secretary of Transportation shall, to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, perform the following functions:
(a) act as a focal point within the Federal government for private sector space launch contacts related to commercial ELV operations;
(b) promote and encourage commercial ELV operations in the same manner that other private United States commercial enterprises are promoted by United States agencies ”

“ Originally the term 'car service' included the 'movement, distribution, exchange, interchange, and return of cars used in the transportation of property.' As amended the term is made to include the use, control, supply, movement, distribution, etc., not only of cars, but of locomotives and other vehicles. It is further extended to include, 'the supply, movement, and operation of trains by any carrier by railroad subject to this act' and so requires every carrier by railroad 'to furnish safe and adequate car service. ”

“ So long as it may fairly be said that the practice required from the motor carrier falls within the meaning the Commission has given to auxiliary and supplemental, the condition is valid.
Such restrictions hamper railroad companies in the use of their physical facilities-stations, terminals, warehouses-their personnel and their capital in the development of their transportation enterprises to encompass all or as much of motor transportation as the roads may desire. The announced transportation policy of Congress did not permit such development. ”

“ Incidental dealings with the moving commodity do not break the interstate journey. [8] Recently we have considered the effect of 'split' means of transportation as to whether the transportation was interstate. United States v. Capital Transit Co., 325 U.S. 357, 363, 65 S.Ct. 1176, 1179, 89 L.Ed. 1663. There a traveler went from the District of Columbia via streetcar or bus to a bus terminal and from there by a different bus to nearby Virginia. We held this to be interstate transportation. ”

“ When competition, public interest in the preservation of the inherent advantages of rails and motors, and use of motor service by railroads in their operation, are the basis, as they are (see National Transportation Policy, 54 Stat. 899 and § 5 (2) (b) for allowing acquisitions of motor routes by railroads, we think it consonant with that policy to reserve the right to make further limitations, restrictions or modifications to insure that the service remain auxiliary or supplemental. ”

“ The argument that the authority of the Commission over car service should be construed to include the requiring of switching rests upon paragraph 10 of amended section 1 of the Act to Regulate Commerce. [6] But 'car service' connotes the use to which the vehicles of transportation are put; not the transportation service rendered by means of them. [7] Cars and locomotives, like tracks and terminals, are the instrumentalities. ”

“ That the American Association of State Highway Officials request the United States Government to formulate and promulgate, as soon as possible, a definite policy for road and street construction and maintenance, and that it is requested that said policy contain a statement that freight cars shall be furnished next spring for the transportation of the necessary materials for the construction and maintenance of streets and roads of economic or military value. ”

“ While efficient and economical movement in interstate commerce is obviously a major objective of the Act, [4] there are numerous provisions which make it clear that Congress intended to exercise its powers in the non-transportation phases of motor carrier activity. [5] Safety of operation was constantly before the committees and Congress in their study of the situation. ”

“ SPECIAL PASSENGER TRAINS. Amtrak is encouraged to increase the operation of special trains funded by, or in partnership with, private sector operators through competitive contracting to minimize the need for Federal subsidies. Amtrak shall utilize the provisions of section 24308 of title 49, United States Code, when necessary to obtain access to facilities, train and engine crews, or services of a rail carrier or regional transportation authority that are required to operate such trains. ”

“ The act as amended June 29th, 1906 (34 Stat. at L. 584, chap. 3591, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 8563) , defines what is meant by common carriers-engaged in transportation by railroad-which are brought within the control of the act, and a railroad is defined to include all switches, spurs, tracks, and terminal facilities of every kind, used or necessary in the transportation of persons or property designated in the act, and also all freight depots, yards, and grounds used or necessary in the transportation or delivery of any of said property. ”

“ No authority can be found in any Act of Congress for the imposition of this surcharge on the Northeast solely to penalize it for being able to transport goods cheaper due to its density of population and volume of traffic. The policy of Congress remains as it long has stood: 'adequate and efficient railway transportation service at the lowest cost consistent with the furnishing of such service.' Interstate Commerce Act, § 15a (2) , 48 Stat. ”

“ It is not enough that the railroad's motor operations are found by the Commission to be of a different character from over-the-road motor operations because they are integrated with railroad operation. The Commission must also consider the disadvantage to the public of a serious impairment of the non-rail motor carriers. Those affected are entitled to fully develop the bearing of the proposals on the transportation agencies which are involved. ”

“ The primary objects have therefore been, to sketch briefly and simply the development of the transportation systems of the United States, to indicate their importance and mutual relations, to present some practical methods used in the operation of highway transport and to make occasional suggestions for the betterment of the road as a usable machine for the benefit and pleasure of mankind. ”