Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, testifying in the House chamber where his portrait hangs on the wall, told his former colleagues that the biggest transportation challenge in the country is to get all the competing interests working together as partners.

What he intends to do, Mineta said yesterday at a hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is work across party lines to build consensus for solutions.
Mineta, who served as chairman of the committee before he retired from Congress in 1995, has his work cut out for him. The main subject of the hearing was congestion – a problem that costs billions in wasted time and fuel in all modes of transportation, and will only get worse unless government and industry can figure out how to bring demand and supply into better balance.
For its part, the Bush administration is proposing significant increases in transportation investment, Mineta said. President Bush’s budget request calls for $42.8 billion in infrastructure investments for highway, transit, aviation and rail – a 39 percent increase over the average annual investment during the past eight years.
Although most of the focus was on airline congestion, trucking was part of the discussion. In response to a question from Rep. Thomas Petri, R-Wis., Mineta said he has a "very, very fine name" he expects to put forward as administrator of the DOT’s key truck safety agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Mineta said he hopes to get clearance for the appointment this week.