With help from Stephanie Beasley and 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. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
— A former pilot is pressing lawmakers to halt Steve Dickson’s nomination to be FAA administrator.
— House appropriators approved a DHS spending measure with $7.9 billion for TSA.
— Uber’s chief executive said rides in fully driverless cars won’t happen for “15-plus years.”
IT’S WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. We know you missed Sam, who will be back Thursday: smintz@politico.com; @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?
NEW TWIST IN FAA NOMINEE SAGA: Another complaint about how Delta Air Lines treated a whistleblower during Dickson’s tenure as senior vice president of flight operations has cropped up. Former pilot Karl Seuring contends the airline fired him in April 2017 because he had said that Delta ran afoul of FAA rules during repair work on a plane flown by the Chilean Air Force. He wrote to Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) on May 28, calling on lawmakers to at least wait for decisions on his and Karlene Petitt’s cases. “Something is not right,” Seuring wrote. “I have asked members to stop and ‘set the parking brake.’” Christine Negroni was first to report about Seuring in a Seattle PI blog post.
A Delta spokesperson said Dickson, who led the airline’s flight operations from 2006 to 2018, “was neither named as party nor deposed” in Seuring’s proceeding. Seuring was fired for “abusing his sick leave, being out of position for reserve duty, making multiple misrepresentations, and misusing his travel passes,” the spokesperson said in a statement, adding that a “neutral, third-party arbitrator upheld” his firing. The spokesperson also said the FAA “never advised Delta that it found any of Seuring’s safety concerns to have merit.”
Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told our Tanya Snyder that he doesn’t think Seuring’s complaint “amounts to anything,” and he expects Dickson’s nomination to advance. Several committee members hadn’t heard about Seuring’s case as of Tuesday. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told your MT host that he’s “heard about a number of whistleblower complaints that are troubling,” and said “they all need to be reviewed closely and carefully, and there needs to be fact-finding before this nomination goes forward.”
ICYMI: The Senate Commerce Security Subcommittee will hold a hearing June 18 on drones and counterdrone technology. The witnesses will be from the FAA, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Massachusetts Port Authority and the National Defense University.
UPDATE ON CHOPPER ACCIDENT: The helicopter pilot who died in a crash in Manhattan earlier this week had communicated that he was lost, the Associated Press reports. The pilot hadn’t been certified to fly in “limited visibility.” The AP also notes that there is a flight restriction in the area, around Trump Tower. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that it “is past time for the FAA to ban unnecessary helicopters from the skies over our densely-packed urban city,” and Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) reupped a demand that tourist flights be forbidden.
ON THE MOVE: The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday advanced a fiscal 2020 DHS spending bill. The panel added language that would require Customs and Border Protection to determine staffing and security needs at seaports, including marine and cruise terminals.
Note: During the markup, ranking member Kay Granger (R-Texas) warned that “continued disagreements over the immigration and border provisions [in the bill] could trigger another government shutdown,” our Stephanie Beasley reports.
IS IT 2035 YET? Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told the crowd at the Economic Club of Washington on Tuesday that he doesn’t expect his company’s ride-hailing service to be fully driverless for “15-plus years.” Remarking on the “drama about robots replacing humans,” Khosrowshahi said it’s best when the two work together — with robots doing repetitive, predictable tasks and humans handling complex stuff. Still, he said he thinks that within the next five years, there will be “some driverless vehicles out in the markets in a very, very limited way.”
DEADPAN: Asked Tuesday about POLITICO’s report on the special intermediary DOT put in place to field requests from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say: “I was complaining to her just last night, 169 projects and Kentucky got only five. I hope we’ll do a lot better next year.”
Speaking of: Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) is looking for co-sponsors on a measure he’s readying that would make it illegal for DOT to “employ someone tasked with [providing] special access to advance a single state’s agenda.” He plans to introduce the measure as an amendment to the fiscal 2020 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill, and today’s the deadline for lawmakers to co-sponsor it. “With our infrastructure crumbling in every state, political favoritism — particularly when the beneficiary is a spouse — should never play a role in national transportation decisions,” Blumenauer said.
A POSSIBLE VEHICLE: Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is thinking about attaching a carbon capture measure, S. 383 (116), to the looming surface transportation reauthorization. The bill is “aimed at speeding the development and deployment of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration technologies,” Pro Energy’s Anthony Adragna reports. Barrasso hopes his committee will approve a highways and transit bill before the August break.
MARATHON HEARING ALERT: The House Transportation Highways and Transit Subcommittee is holding a hearing today on trucking, bringing in a whopping eight witnesses (bring snacks, people!) to talk about safety, jobs and other challenges.
Among those witnesses: Chris Spear, the president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, will touch on subjects ranging from hair testing to autonomous vehicle technology in his written testimony. He’ll speak against a bill, S. 665 (116), that would require underside guards to be installed on trucks and a measure to increase hours-of-service flexibility for livestock transporters. He’ll also push for increased infrastructure investment.
On the other hand: Andy Young, a lawyer representing victims of truck crashes and a member of both the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association and the American Association for Justice, will ask Congress to raise trucking insurance minimums, oppose a “national hiring standard” that would protect shippers from liability, and pass the underrides bill that ATA opposes. And expect Cathy Chase, the president of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, to share statistics on truck accidents.
YOU HAVE 60 DAYS TO COMMENT: FRA announced it’s extending the deadline for a system safety rule for railroads and making some changes sought by states and labor unions, including permission for railroads to shift responsibility for program implementation to the provider of the rail service.
WANTED: TSA is seeking new members for its aviation security advisory panel, according to a notice expected to run in the Federal Register today. The panel is tasked with providing advice and recommendations on aviation security issues, including “developing, refining, and implementing policies, programs, rulemaking and security directives pertaining to aviation security, while adhering to sensitive security guidelines,” per the notice. There’s no cap on the number of members that can sit on the panel.
Andrew Brady is now general director of external affairs for Union Pacific. He was most recently the Association of American Railroads’ assistant vice president of government affairs. And Ariel Wolf is returning to Venable after serving as counselor to Jeff Rosen, who recently left DOT to be deputy attorney general.
— “EASA publishes drone rules.” POLITICO Europe.
— “Drones to carry people have yet to take off, but they will have a place to land.” The Wall Street Journal.
— “Boston transit head seeks outside review after 2 derailments.” The Associated Press.
— “Volkswagen breaks with Silicon Valley self-driving start-up Aurora.” The Financial Times.
— “The popular revolt against flying.” POLITICO Europe.
— “Saving the planet with electric cars means strangling this desert.” Bloomberg.
— “Q&A: Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols.” POLITICO California Pro.
DOT appropriations run out in 110 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,571 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 479 days.
