With help from Tanya Snyder
Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Transportation is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Transportation subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. Learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, at politicopro.com.
Advertisement
— Lawmakers are still passing drafts back and forth on self-driving car legislation, but there’s a strong push off the Hill to get something done.
— DOT’s internal watchdog knocked the FAA’s oversight of Southwest Airlines in a new report.
— A House bill introduced this week aims to ease worries about the approaching REAL ID deadline by letting TSA PreCheck serve as an alternative.
IT’S WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. Get in touch with tips, feedback or song lyric suggestions at smintz@politico.com or @samjmintz.
LISTEN HERE: Follow MT’s playlist on Spotify. What better way to start your day than with songs (picked by us and readers) about roads, rails, rivers and runways.
NO BILL, BUT PLENTY TO ARGUE ON AVS: There was no bill to discuss Tuesday during the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on driverless cars — Democrats and Republicans are still trading drafts — but there was a sense of urgency that Congress needs to pass a bill to provide a regulatory path forward for a technology that holds the promise of saving tens of thousands of lives each year and offers new mobility options to millions of senior citizens and people with disabilities. Here are some highlights:
Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Technology Association, urged lawmakers not to let “the perfect be the enemy of the amazing and the great” — especially if the hold-up involves “fighting about things like protecting trial lawyers” while China is “getting ahead of us.”
Ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) also took a shot at the trial lawyers, represented by the American Association for Justice, chiding them for asking “for more changes in the Senate despite the deal we had here in the House” and for not supporting the deal, even when lawmakers ceded to their provisions. AAJ’s State Affairs Counsel Daniel Hinkle, however, insisted his group was trying to keep carmakers accountable by ensuring that injured parties have the right to sue and that the federal government doesn’t bigfoot the states on regulations.
Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), meanwhile, told subcommittee Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.): “I want you to know I am committed to finding a bipartisan path forward here. … I have a son with special needs. And I think about his future and how this will just change it.”
Other issues that arose: Autonomous vehicles should be accessible to people with disabilities, including those who are blind, meaning you shouldn’t need to be able to see to get a license to operate one. There was also talk about data — Jeffrey Tumlin, director of San Francisco’s transportation agency, wants Congress to require companies to include event data recorders in AVs that preserve all information from sensors before a collision and to collect it in a national database. John Bozzella, CEO of the new Alliance for Automotive Innovation, used the need for data as a sweetener for exemptions that allow companies to build cars that don’t comply with traditional safety standards. By getting reports on how the exempted vehicles are performing, NHTSA gets the data it needs to make “good rules.”
DOT WATCHDOG DINGS FAA’S OVERSIGHT OF SOUTHWEST: DOT’s inspector general released a report on Tuesday that is highly critical of the FAA’s oversight of Southwest Airlines, our Brianna Gurciullo reports. The report said regulators have knowingly kept planes flying that may not comply with safety rules and hasn’t ensured that Southwest “operates at the highest possible degree of safety.”
In part, the issue is the agency hasn’t ensured that its own inspectors and the airline aren’t using safety management systems in place of regulatory requirements. In 2018, the FAA found that Southwest was giving pilots inaccurate information about plane weight and balance, but the agency allowed the practice to continue because it trusted “the carrier’s risk assessment indicating this is a low risk,” according to the IG. And in 2017, the FAA started finding “maintenance discrepancies” among 88 used planes that Southwest had bought mostly from foreign airlines. FAA “designees” had signed off on most of the planes in a single day, a process that usually takes three or four weeks per plane.
In a statement, Southwest said it disagrees with the “unsubstantiated references to Southwest’s safety culture” included in the report.
BOEING, FAA READYING 737 MAX FOR TEST FLIGHT: The FAA is getting ready for a test flight of the grounded Boeing 737 MAX, Reuters reported from Singapore, where Administrator Steve Dickson was visiting an air show on Tuesday. “The certification flight is the next major milestone and once that is completed I think we will have a good bit more clarity on where the process goes forward from there,” Dickson told reporters.
After that flight, there will still be plenty of work left to do before the plane returns to service, including analysis of the flight data, simulator sessions to evaluate Boeing’s proposed training (which Dickson and his deputy will both take part in, according to Reuters), followed by an amended Flight Standardization Board report and the publication of several other documents for public review.
PRECHECK AS REAL ID ALTERNATIVE? Two House lawmakers made a first move on Tuesday to address worries about REAL ID enrollment ahead of the October deadline by introducing legislation that would allow travelers to use TSA PreCheck as an alternative to a REAL ID. The bill from Reps. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) and Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) would also require TSA to develop a contingency plan to address people who try to travel without a REAL ID after Oct. 1. Lesko warned of “mass confusion, chaos and delays” that could occur if no measures are taken before then. The bill has support from airports, airlines and the travel industry.
TIME FOR CHANGE: The GAO is recommending TSA take steps to improve its insider threat program after finding that the agency hadn’t completed updates to its strategic or performance goals for the program due to recent turnover of senior leadership. “Without a strategic plan and performance goals, it is difficult for TSA to determine if its approach is working and progress is being made toward deterring, detecting, and mitigating insider threats to the aviation sector,” GAO said in its report.
NO SURPRISES HERE: MT asked House Transportation Chairman Peter DeFazio what he thought of the president’s fiscal 2021 budget request, which proposes $1 trillion for infrastructure without a realistic plan to fund it. “At least they did express an empty desire to increase funding for infrastructure,” he said. “As usual, there is no plan to pay for it.”
Where does the House’s work on finding funding for its own infrastructure bill stand? “Go ask Richie [Neal, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee],” DeFazio said. “I don’t bug him anymore. I made my case 100 times.”
ANOTHER RSVP: Former Vice President Joe Biden will join fellow 2020 contenders Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar at an infrastructure forum held by a coalition of labor and transportation advocacy groups in Nevada this Sunday.
DOT HQ NAME CHANGE GETS THROUGH COMMITTEE: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved a bill that would rename DOT’s headquarters after William Coleman, Transportation secretary under Gerald Ford and only the second African American Cabinet member in U.S. history.
STAT OF THE DAY: Amtrak’s ridership numbers soared in Virginia in December with 100,511 customers, a 27 percent increase from the same period in 2018, according to the railroad. High holiday travel helped drive the increase, Amtrak said.
Neil Quartaro, an experienced maritime attorney, is joining the transportation and trade practice at Cozen O’Connor.
— “Cruise ship coronavirus infections double, exceeding the total for any country but China.” Washington Post.
— “Lyft annual loss more than doubles, but revenue keeps rising.” Associated Press.
— “Air Italy stops flying and goes into liquidation.” CNN.
— “Meet the Huawei of airport security.” POLITICO Pro Europe.
— “HS2 go-ahead controversial and difficult, admits Boris Johnson.” BBC.
DOT appropriations run out in 231 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,328 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 231 days.
