With help from 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.
— TSA is worried that you don’t have Real ID-compliant identification. And it’s backed up by data.
— Angela Stubblefield will be FAA Administrator Steve Dickson’s chief of staff.
— UPS says its drone delivery business has been “cut loose” after securing a approval from the FAA to operate widely.
IT’S WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. Sam Mintz is feeling a bit under the weather, so Tanya and Brianna are your humble guest hosts today. Send some get-well-soon wishes to Sam at smintz@politico.com or @samjmintz, and feel free to share any thoughts about today’s newsletter via email or Twitter: tsnyder@politico.com or @TSnyderDC and bgurciullo@politico.com or @brigurciullo.
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.
LOOK TO THE STAR: TSA is fretting that only 27 percent of Americans currently have REAL ID-compliant identification cards, one year shy of the deadline when travelers will need one to fly. (If there’s a star at the top of your driver’s license, you’re good to go.) New Jersey, Oklahoma and Oregon are the only states that don’t issue compliant ID cards yet and they all, plus American Samoa, are slated to be compliant by Oct. 10. The Northern Mariana Islands has until Feb. 28 of next year. Our Steph Beasley has the goods.
Squad up: Airlines for America, Airports Council International-North America, American Association of Airport Executives and U.S. Travel Association joined TSA acting Deputy Administrator Patricia Cogswell at a press event in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, urging more people to get their REAL IDs. “We really need to get the word out,’ Cogswell said.
STEVE DICKSON’S COS: The head of the FAA has picked Angela Stubblefield to be his chief of staff, Brianna scooped on Tuesday. Right now, Stubblefield is the FAA’s deputy associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety. She’ll start her new job next month. Acting chief of staff Tina Amereihn will move on to become director of the FAA’s office for Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
ON THE SPOT: Senate Appropriations Transportation-HUD Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) are asking tough questions of Dickson, like: Why did Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell say everything’s fine but the Office of Special Counsel said 737 MAX safety inspectors had incomplete training? And do you promise your decision-making will be transparent when you decide to put the MAX back in the air? And can you please send a copy of that alarming-sounding safety report that we asked you for in July? In their letter to Dickson on Tuesday, they gave him until Oct. 11 to respond.
DRONE FREEDOM? UPS Flight Forward has secured a type of certification from the FAA that will let it deliver packages by drone more broadly than any other company. “We have no limits on the number of aircraft, the number of operators or the number of locations,” Bala Ganesh, the head of the Advanced Technology Group at UPS, told Brianna in an interview. “So basically we have been cut loose to actually scale throughout the country.” However, flights beyond visual line of sight still require the FAA’s sign-off.
GETTING TOGETHER: The District of Columbia and twelve states in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions on Tuesday released a draft policy framework for their joint transition to lower-carbon transportation. Working together under the umbrella of the Transportation Climate Initiative since 2010, the jurisdictions propose a cap-and-invest plan to cap vehicle emissions for state fuel suppliers, charge them for the pollution they cause and invest the money in clean transportation. They want to get it up and running as early as 2022 and reach their target emissions level in 2032.
OPEN FOR BUSINESS: FMCSA announced Tuesday that registration is open for the Commercial Driver’s License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, which was mandated by the 2012 surface transportation law. The clearinghouse won’t be fully implemented until Jan. 6, 2020. Commercial drivers will need to register for the clearinghouse for potential employers to be able to perform a pre-employment query.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T USE LIDAR: Tesla is acquiring DeepScale, a startup that makes technology that uses standard, low-wattage processors to power very accurate computer vision, CNBC reported Tuesday. Tesla has promised fully self-driving cars by the end of 2019, but about 10 percent of Tesla’s software team left the company earlier this year.
Three veterans of the Washington transportation policy world — Rob Chamberlin, Jeff Markey and Sam Whitehorn — have left the Signal Group and are teaming up to form Elevate Government Affairs, a firm that will focus on transportation and infrastructure as well as energy, tech and related sectors.
— “U.S. Marshals sold a man a plane seized from a drug money launderer, but Mexico is holding it ‘hostage,’ his congressman says.” The Washington Post.
— “Cuomo suggests he will appoint himself to an obscure MTA oversight board.” POLITICO New York.
— “Is 2020 the year for eyes-off automated driving?” Forbes.
— “Sweeney to chair new committee investigating NJ Transit.” POLITICO New Jersey.
— “Uber and Lyft close at record lows as investor skepticism grows around recent IPOs.” CNBC.
— “Chris Collins pleads guilty to insider trading.” POLITICO.
— “GM idles a pickup-truck plant in Mexico amid U.S. strike.” The Wall Street Journal.
— “Thomas Cook auditors investigated by accounting watchdog.” The Guardian.
DOT appropriations run out in 51 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,460 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 365 days.
