With help from Tanya Snyder, Brianna Gurciullo and Stephanie Beasley
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.
Story Continued Below
— Under threat of subpoena, Boeing’s CEO has been formally invited to appear at an October House hearing, a few days after the company engaged in a public spat with lawmakers over their investigation of the grounded 737 MAX.
— Senate appropriators moved along their Transportation-HUD spending bill on Tuesday, with a full committee markup set for later in the week.
— The government shutdown earlier this year cost DOT and DHS thousands of hours in lost productivity, according to a new Senate report.
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.
“Driving in your car / I never, never want to go home / Because I haven’t got one anymore.” (h/t Elise Young)
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.
REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE: Boeing’s CEO has been formally invited to testify in front of the House Transportation Committee, just a few days after the company and the panel exchanged barbs over whether the committee released sensitive information about its investigation of the grounded 737 MAX aircraft. Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) asked that CEO Dennis Muilenburg and John Hamilton, the chief engineer of the company’s commercial airplanes division, testify at a full committee hearing on Oct. 30. Just to add emphasis to the request, DeFazio told our Brianna Gurciullo on Tuesday evening that he will subpoena them, if necessary.
Boeing didn’t immediately accept. A spokesperson said the company is “reviewing” the invitation.
Senate has Boeing expectations, too: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) is still looking to hold a hearing on the 737 MAX in October. The Senate Commerce chairman said Tuesday “the whole point” of the full committee hearing would be to hear from Boeing. The company has “been fully advised that once they’re free to talk because investigations are over or have reached a certain point that the top leadership is expected,” Wicker said.
US AGAINST THE WORLD? The U.S. was the last major country to ground the MAX six months ago — now it might be the first to let it back in the sky. As our Kathryn A. Wolfe and Brianna reported on Tuesday, European aviation safety regulators, as well as authorities in India and the UAE, have said they will set their own conditions even as the FAA ramps up its work to unground the MAX. Brianna and Kathryn write: “The demands are a departure from decades of international aviation practices, in which other nations’ regulators typically deferred to the FAA and its approvals of U.S. planes. And they’re a further sign that the United States’ once-preeminent role in aviation safety may have suffered lasting damage.”
Read their story, outside the paywall, for more analysis of the geopolitical aviation safety tension and what it means for Boeing and U.S. travelers, as well as quotes from an interview with the CEO of Boeing’s rival, Airbus.
Later in the day on Tuesday, Reuters reported that FAA Administrator Steve Dickson is planning a briefing in Montreal for about 50 foreign regulators on Sept. 23.
AIR RAGE: Almost all of the 104 airline customer service agents surveyed for a new GAO report said they had been verbally harassed by passengers, and about 10 percent said they’d been physically assaulted by passengers in the past year.
THUD ON THE MOVE: The Senate’s fiscal 2020 Transportation-HUD spending bill is off to the full Appropriations Committee after a quick subcommittee markup Tuesday. The draft bill has $25.3 billion in discretionary funding for DOT, according to summaries from both the Republican and Democratic sides of the committee. The bill’s text and report have yet to be released, but Brianna broke down the summaries for Pros.
What else is in there? During Tuesday’s markup, Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) made a point of noting that the bill would require the troubled FAA to “address” recommendations from the many ongoing Boeing 737 MAX probes.
What didn’t get in? Collins said after the markup that the bill does not propose a hike to the cap on passenger facility charges. Appropriators are “trying not to put in controversial issues, in order to smooth the path for the bill,” she said. A full committee markup is scheduled for Thursday.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU COULD GET 2,413 YEARS BACK? Your host and Stephanie Beasley reported on a Senate Homeland Security Committee report on the costs of the fiscal 2019 government shutdown that DOT and DHS lost thousands of years of worker productivity. For example, DOT furloughed 18,000 employees — a move that cost it $186 million in back pay and 2,413 years in lost productivity. The department also had to make drastic changes to its activities, which included suspending vehicle safety activities at NHTSA as well as aircraft certification work at the FAA. FTA reimbursements to transit agencies also were delayed.
At DHS, the costs of the shutdown were estimated at more than $423 million, the greatest portion of which was back pay owed. And among the subagencies, the Coast Guard was especially affected by the funding lapse, which caused it to delay the review and approval of 11,000 merchant mariner credentials and 650 mariner examinations as well as the approval of 220 courses, according to the report. DHS furloughed 32,706 employees total and estimated it lost nearly 3,132.8 years in worker productivity.
YOUR POLITICO SCOOP OF THE DAY: A White House effort to end the United Auto Workers strike is effectively putting the administration on the side of the labor union and against General Motors, report the stellar team of POLITICO’s Ian Kullgren, Ben White and Daniel Lippman. An agreement being pushed by the White House would reopen an assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that GM shut down in March, and could boost President Donald Trump’s re-election chances in the Midwest.
Responses of note: The White House and GM both denied the administration is involved in negotiations (although both waited until the story was published to do so).
HEAR ME OUT: The Federal Motor Carry Safety Administration held a listening session at DOT headquarters Tuesday to get feedback on its proposed hours of service rules for commercial motor vehicles. Most of the suggestions were what you’d expect: Many of the drivers there representing themselves or associations asked DOT to insert even more flexibility to the rules, like allowing drivers to split a 30 minute rest break into smaller 10-minute increments. Reps from safety groups, including the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said DOT’s proposed changes go too far and would make the roads less safe.
Not all of the comments were formulaic, though. “Not once in 15 years have I probably followed your rules,” said Mike Landis, CEO of the U.S. Transportation Alliance, standing in front of a panel of high-ranking FMCSA officials. “I do what I want, when I want, and how I want. You can call it cheating, creative editing. I don’t care. I call it responsibility. I know when I need to sleep. I know when I’m OK to drive.”
For their part, the FMCSA officials were in listening mode and mostly asked for more data in written form as part of the docket for the proposed rules.
AOC COMES FOR LIPINSKI: Railroads Subcommittee Chairman Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) is not only up against challenger Marie Newman in his primary election battle — he’s now got the Squad to contend with. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has picked this race to make her first anti-incumbent Democratic endorsement. “We can’t afford deep blue seats fighting against healthcare & equal rights,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
— “Trump to block California auto emissions rules.” POLITICO Pro.
— “Ethiopian crash victims want 737 MAX documents from Boeing, FAA.” Reuters.
— “The completely correct guide to getting off a plane.” Washington Post.
— “Lyft allegedly kept a driver on the platform who held a passenger at gunpoint while two other men raped her.” Vice.
— “Progress reported in contract talks between GM, union.” Associated Press.
DOT appropriations run out in 13 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,475 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 380 days.
