— A fuselage rupture grounds most of Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 fleet and raises more safety questions.
— Congress returns to Washington with key transportation-related deadlines on the horizon.
— Close to 10 percent of all vehicle sales in December were EVs, and 1.4 million EVs and plug-in hybrids were sold last year.
IT’S MONDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. You can reach Alex, Oriana, Tanya at [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected], respectively. Find us all on the platform formerly known as Twitter @alextdaugherty, @Oriana0214 and @TSnyderDC.
GAPING HOLE: Boeing faces fresh questions about its 737 MAX fleet and safety record after a relatively new MAX 9 plane had a hole in its fuselage on Friday night, prompting the FAA to temporarily ground most of the MAX 9 fleet over the weekend. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker “has acted to order these aircraft grounded pending the inspections necessary to ensure that they are safe to operate.” The FAA order took 171 planes out of service worldwide.
No one was hurt on the Alaska Airlines flight en route to Ontario International Airport in southern California, which was forced to turn back to Portland International Airport around 5 p.m. local time on Friday, but dramatic video on social media showed the gaping hole in the fuselage near where a mid-cabin exit door should be. Lawmakers began raising concerns with Boeing over the weekend.
Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), whose district includes the airport where the Alaska flight was scheduled to land, said in a letter to Whitaker that “Boeing’s track record, along with the FAA’s safety oversight in recent years, has raised serious, warranted concerns for the flying public.” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a Commerce Committee member, said the near-catastrophic event raises questions about whether the 737 MAX is safe. “Pilots have filed safety complaints on these aircraft, many of which had just rolled off the production line, at a rate which is unbecoming of American aviation,” Vance said.
The MAX 9 is a different design than the MAX 8, which was grounded globally for almost two years after two crashes overseas killed 346 people. Multiple probes into how the MAX 8 was certified heaped blame on both Boeing and the FAA for inadequate oversight. Alaska was forced to cancel more than 160 flights on Saturday and on Sunday, while United Airlines said it had to cancel 180 flights on Sunday after the FAA’s grounding announcement. Alaska said in a statement they expect cancellations “to last through at least mid-week.” United, which has 79 MAX 9 planes, said they “are working with impacted customers to accommodate them on other aircraft” and saved 85 flights on Sunday by switching aircraft.
The NTSB investigation is underway, but Chair Jennifer Homendy late Saturday asked for the public’s help in locating a crucial piece of evidence — the missing door. Oriana has more on the grounding and related fallout. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said she agreed with the FAA’s decision to ground the aircraft and is closely monitoring the NTSB investigation.
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BIG WEEK AHEAD: The House and Senate return this week with major deadlines staring them straight in the face. And one key lawmaker, Cantwell, won’t be in Washington for the beginning of the workweek at least. Cantwell announced on Saturday evening she tested positive for Covid and will work from home. Cantwell, of course, will play a big role in determining whether or not the Senate can move past a monthslong delay on their FAA bill, S. 1939 (118). Republican senators before the holidays accused Democrats of moving the goalposts on raising the pilot retirement age from 65 to 67, stalling the bill after a compromise on a monthslong pilot training dispute was reached late last year.
And the House and Senate must continue to grapple with THUD appropriations as House Republicans were unable to agree on how much to cut rail funding last year and punted on their THUD bill, H.R. 4820 (118). But now the Jan. 19 government funding deadline is fast approaching and the House and Senate need to come to some kind of agreement on transportation spending (and other appropriations bills) to avoid a shutdown.
TOP LINE AGREED TO: Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to a top line funding agreement on Sunday, Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report, setting defense funding at $886 billion for the current fiscal year, in line with the total President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated as part of last summer’s debt ceiling package. In a big win for Democrats, the accord pegs non-defense funding at nearly $773 billion, a total that counts tens of billions of dollars agreed to alongside the debt limit package. The House Freedom Caucus is already raising objections.
One other ongoing high-stakes negotiation appeared to move forward over the weekend. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the top GOP negotiator on a border and immigration deal that could unlock billions in Ukraine aid, said Sunday that text of the agreement could be released this week, Burgess Everett reports. Senators negotiating the deal and the Biden administration are honing in on an agreement that could raise the standard for claiming asylum and potentially deliver new expulsion and enforcement authorities to the administration. It would also provide significant new resources for border adjudication and staffing.
PLUGGED-IN: More than 1.4 million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles were sold in the U.S. last year, bolstered by a December surge that brought the total number of EVs on the roads to more than 4 million, James Bikales reports. Almost 10 percent of all vehicles sold in December were electric, said Michael Berube, the Energy Department’s deputy assistant secretary for sustainable transportation and fuels.
“We’re moving beyond just the very early adopters and we are starting to move to the next phase of real significant growth in the marketplace,” Berube said, pushing back on the notion that EV sales slowed in the second half of 2023.
The Treasury Department also said that hundreds of “point-of-sale” EV tax credits have been processed since Jan. 1, which allows buyers to access the tax credits instantly instead of waiting to claim it when they file their taxes.
GOING UP: The FAA on Friday said it closed out 2023 with another record for commercial space transportation, with 124 licensed operations, including 117 launches and seven reentries — up from “just 41 FAA-licensed operations in 2020.”
Industry growth: “These record numbers are possible due to the growing capabilities of industry and the FAA working to meet the demand for launch and reentry license approvals,” said Kelvin Coleman, FAA’s associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation.
SPACEX FIGHT: SpaceX lawyers last week alleged in a lawsuit that the National Labor Relations Board’s in-house courts are unconstitutional. If successful, the suit would cast doubts on the NLRB’s authority to police the workplace and “create a thorny political issue in an area that for decades has divided Congress,” Nick Niedzwiadek and Olivia Olander report.
KEEPING TRACK: In response to criticism from NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy that the federal government isn’t using its full authority to impose safety rules on transit agencies in the aftermath of a 2021 WMATA derailment, the Federal Transit Administration said that State Safety Oversight Agencies in each state that operates rail transit are responsible for ensuring rail safety.
In November, FTA published a notice of proposed rulemaking of revisions to the program due to new requirements put in place by the infrastructure law. Comments are open on the NPRM until Jan. 16. In a statement, the FTA said the agency “is working actively to set minimum safety standards for transit across the country” by updating a national public transportation safety plan, issuing a new rule with infrastructure law requirements, publishing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on fatigue in transit and issuing a proposed rule that would set minimum standards for protecting roadway workers.
DIFFERENT BUT SIMILAR: While the U.S. and its allies are framing attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea from Iran-backed Houthi rebels as a piracy issue similar to Somali attacks a decade ago, Jeremy Van der Haegen and Antonia Zimmermann report that the Houthis are better armed and are driven by political motivations related to the Israel-Hamas war instead of the economic motives of Somali pirates. “The Houthis are much better armed, they have a much greater capability in terms of attacking and boarding vessels, and their munitions are a significant order higher than anything we saw the Somali pirates use,” said John Stawpert, senior manager at the International Chamber of Shipping.
But unlike the Somali attacks, which drew cooperation from China and Russia in responding to the shipping menace, the two countries are not part of the U.S.-led response to the Houthi attacks. For now, many major shipping companies are avoiding the Red Sea and rerouting, a change that could have supply chain effects across the world if shipping delays stretch on for months.
Melissa Wade, senior director of government relations at Aurora Innovation, will serve as the new chair of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association board of directors.
— “Families of Seattle couple killed by light rail train to get $6.5 million.” The Seattle Times.
— “Unruly passenger seen on cell phone video assaulting flight attendant.” CBS News Texas.
— “Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air.” The Seattle Times.
— “Air France denied slot usage waiver at JFK.” PaxEx.Aero.
— “United keeps options open on potential HQ move to Denver.” WGN-TV.
— “UAW strikes tentative deal with auto parts maker Allison Transmission.” Reuters.
