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— The highway portion of the Senate’s surface transportation bill should be rolled out today, with a committee vote on track for Tuesday.
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— A handful of FAA officials are set to testify in front of a Senate committee this week and will face questions about the agency’s role in certifying the grounded Boeing 737 MAX, as well as its future with a new administrator.
— Two new reports released Friday expose cybersecurity flaws at DOT and MARAD, which was hacked by the inspector general’s office as part of an audit.
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IT’S SURFACE WEEK: On Monday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will release text of its part of the surface transportation reauthorization, focusing on highway spending. As our Tanya Snyder was first to report last week, the EPW bill would reauthorize $287 billion in highway spending, create new grant programs to address climate change and codify parts of the administration’s “One Federal Decision” project-streamlining policy.
EPW will vote on the five-year authorization on Tuesday. By all accounts it’s been a cooperative, bipartisan process, but disagreements could still bubble up over numbers in the bill. And transportation authorizers in the House will be watching closely as they work on their bill, which isn’t expected to come out until potentially as late as early 2020.
EPW is off the hook on figuring out how the pay for the bill, which is arguably the hardest part. That task falls to the Senate Finance Committee, which hasn’t started working on its section of the bill. Lobbying groups have started weighing in on what they’d like to see happen, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, which wants lawmakers to prioritize fixing the Highway Trust Fund and launched a new campaign on that front Friday.
FAA OFFICIALS TO TESTIFY: And in the Senate Appropriations Committee this week is an oversight hearing on the FAA, which will see several top officials testify. The agency has been under intense scrutiny in recent months following two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Among the officials on the witness list is Ali Bahrami, associate administrator for aviation safety. Reporting from the Seattle Times and other outlets has suggested that Bahrami pushed for more delegation by the FAA and specifically to outsource more of the safety work on Boeing jets to Boeing itself.
The rest of your week: There’s a Senate Commerce hearing on positive train control on Wednesday, and there could be a vote on the renomination of NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt, whose term expires Aug. 8.
TROUBLE IN CYBERSPACE: DOT was one of dozens of federal agencies dinged in a new GAO report on cybersecurity published last week. The federal watchdog said DOT should fully develop a cybersecurity risk management strategy, update its policies to require an agency-wide risk assessment, and establish a “process for coordination between cybersecurity risk management and enterprise risk management functions.” Read more.
Separately, DOT’s inspector general issued a damning report Friday on cybersecurity at the Maritime Administration. It details how the IG successfully hacked into the agency’s network and placed hacking tools on it, as well as coming across unencrypted information that could have been used to steal citizens’ identities if it were found by real hackers. The audit included sending phishing emails (that more than 50 employees responded to with their usernames and passwords) and gaining entry into a locked office to install something on a workstation.
DOT officials agreed with all 19 of the recommendations offered by the IG and are planning to implement them, according to the report. Pros can read more here, courtesy of your MT host.
WHAT’S THE DEAL? Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are pushing DHS to release a report on how it’s used facial recognition technology, after the agency missed a statutory deadline to do so. “American travelers deserve to fully understand exactly who has access to their biometric data, how long their data will be held, how their information will be safeguarded, and how they can opt out of this data collection altogether,” they wrote. Read more from Pro Technology’s Cristiano Lima.
FEDS’ SIDE OF THE STORY: FRA provided some context Friday on California’s announcement earlier in the week that the state was granted the authority to conduct its own environmental reviews for its controversial high-speed rail project. “This is the first time FRA has assigned its environmental review responsibilities, and follows the Federal Highway Administration’s assigning National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) responsibilities to California in 2007,” an FRA spokesperson said. “FRA is taking this step after working diligently with the State through technical issues and considering public comment.”
The agency also clarified that a grant agreement worth nearly $1 billion terminated by the Trump administration did not include environmental review within its “scope of work.”
EXTRA TIME: NHTSA has extended the comment period for an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on removing regulatory barriers for vehicles with automated driving systems. It was originally scheduled to end Monday, but the public will now have until Aug. 28 to weigh in.
Peggy Chabrian, the founder, president and CEO of Women in Aviation International, is stepping down from the organization after nearly 30 years leading it. She’ll retire in April 2020. Theresa Impastato, a 20-year rail safety and operations veteran, has been named executive vice president and chief safety officer of D.C.’s Metro.
— “Latest 737 Max fault that alarmed test pilots rooted in software.” Bloomberg.
— “The roots of Boeing’s 737 Max crisis: A regulator relaxes its oversight.” New York Times.
— “MARC, VRE say on-time performance has dropped, cite increase in CSX trains as one factor.” Washington Post.
— “Broken self-cleaning toilet? Findings from Metro’s inspector general raise more concerns.” WTOP.
— “Flags of inconvenience: Noose tightens around Iranian shipping.” Reuters.
— “Congress takes another stab at passing self-driving car legislation.” The Verge.
DOT appropriations run out in 63 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,524 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 432 days.
