With help from Tanya Snyder, Oriana Pawlyk and Alex Guillén
— Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s canceled flight prompted tweets about flight refunds.
— President Joe Biden and Jeff Bezos argue about gas prices after Biden targets gas stations.
— Red states and fuel manufacturers fight NHTSA’s fuel economy rule, arguing that tighter standards will lead to more expensive vehicles.
IT’S TUESDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. As always, send tips, pitches, feedback and song lyrics to [email protected]. You can find all of us on Twitter: @alextdaugherty, @TSnyderDC and @Oriana0214.
FLIGHT FIREWORKS: The holiday weekend was, predictably, a travel mess. More than 1,500 flights were canceled and 17,000 delayed across the country from Friday through Monday, according to the flight tracker FlightAware. One of those affected was Buttigieg, who, like many of us, decided that his flight woes were worthy of some tweets.
BLUE CHECK PRIVILEGES: But Buttigieg’s tweet thread on Saturday wasn’t your typical @Delta meltdown, instead making the point that stranded passengers are entitled to a cash refund for a canceled flight (though that means you’re responsible for finding another flight home).
“Sometimes an airline will offer you points or miles as compensation, but you are entitled to a cash refund when your flight is canceled. When deciding whether to accept miles, it’s helpful to know their value, which varies, but often is estimated at 1 to 1.5 cents per mile,” Buttigieg tweeted. “ For example, my connecting flight got canceled last night. At first, the airline offered 2500 miles, which I estimate is worth about 30 bucks. But I claimed the refund for the canceled portion instead, and it worked out to be $112.07.”
DOT LIMITS: Buttigieg ended his thread with a link to DOT’s aviation consumer protection website. His thread, while helpful advice, isn’t going to fix the poor performance of airlines as airline travel meets or exceeds pre-pandemic levels. A reminder: Oriana has a great rundown of why the federal government can’t do much about your canceled or delayed flight.
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DO IT NOW: While gas prices are down slightly from their all-time highs set in mid-June, the holiday weekend served as another reminder that a tank of gas is significantly more expensive today than it was a year ago, prompting Biden to attack gas stations on Saturday.
“My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now,” Biden tweeted.
DOUGH FOR TWINKIES: But retail gas stations don’t rake in most of their profits at the pump. The National Association of Convenience Stores estimates that the station makes about 15 cents in profit per gallon, with most of the money made by gas stations coming from the sales of food, drinks and other goods inside the store.
Biden’s message prompted a response from Bezos, the latest billionaire to make news with tweets, who accused the White House of a “deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.”
“Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this,” Bezos tweeted. “It’s either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.”
STOP LAGGING: White House press secretary Karren Jean-Pierre responded to Bezos, arguing that while oil prices are down from their early-June highs, prices at the pump are not. There’s typically a lag in gas prices when oil prices begin falling, because gas station owners usually take losses when oil prices rise rapidly.
“Oil prices have dropped by about $15 over the past month, but prices at the pump have barely come down,” Jean-Pierre tweeted. “That’s not ‘basic market dynamics.’ It’s a market that is failing the American consumer.”
Gas prices have been on the decline for the last two weeks, falling to $4.80 per gallon on average from their all-time high of $5.02 per gallon on June 14, according to AAA. But that’s only a 4 percent decrease, and the White House has endorsed a 90-day federal gas tax holiday with the aim of reducing costs further.
LAWSUITS UNDERWAY: The first lawsuits were filed after last week’s Amtrak crash and derailment in Missouri, which led to four deaths and dozens of injuries. Amtrak and BNSF, which owns the tracks where the crash occurred, sued MS Contracting in federal court alleging that the company and the truck driver who was killed in the crash were operating the truck “negligently, carelessly, and recklessly.” The lawsuit said that the driver failed to yield the right-of-way at the grade crossing. The truck driver’s widow filed her own lawsuit, alleging that BNSF and Chariton County, where the collision occurred, were negligent. The NTSB, which said the train was traveling below the track’s 90 mph speed limit at the time of the crash, said it is focusing its investigation on the grade crossing.
“BNSF was actually warned by concerned citizens of the ultra-hazardous nature of the crossing; yet it sat on its hands and failed to make sure the grade crossing was in proper condition or had active warnings to prevent this horrific crash,” said the lawsuit, filed this week in Chariton County Circuit Court.
LAWSUIT>ARBITRATION: Janet Williams, a passenger on the Amtrak train, sued Amtrak, BNSF and MS Contracting in federal court on Friday, criticizing the design of the railroad crossing and arguing that the train had too many passengers on it at the time of the crash. But current Amtrak ticket rules prevent victims from suing, instead forcing disputes into arbitration without a judge or jury. There’s legislation in the House and Senate, H.R. 5751 (117) and S. 3082 (117), that would prohibit Amtrak from including mandatory arbitration clauses in their tickets.
STATES, REFINING INDUSTRY SUE OVER CAFE RULE:Eleven red states and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers sued separately last week over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s fuel economy rule for model year 2024-2026 vehicles, Reg. 2127-AM34. “At a time when Americans are already struggling because of Biden’s inept policies and radical progressive agenda, NHTSA’s fuel standards will only create more concerns and saddle consumers with higher-priced electric vehicles,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.
Joining Texas in the suit are Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina and Utah. Meanwhile, AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson charged NHTSA with “blatantly ignoring the methodology Congress established for how CAFE standards must be set.” Those two suits have been lumped in with one brought earlier by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which argues the agency was too lax.
— “GM outsells Toyota in Q2 as inventory shortages linger.” Reuters.
— “Workers at airports have had it.” The New York Times.
— “After two pandemic years, a summer travel bounce — and chaos.” The Associated Press.
— “Is your new car a threat to national security?” Wired.
