With help from Oriana Pawlyk
— President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday will likely continue his promo tour of the infrastructure bill’s investments.
— Aviation is set to see lots of action this week on the Hill, with hearings scheduled in both chambers.
— DOT’s inspector general’s office found failures in DOT oversight of $260 million in federal funds sent to Seattle DOT between 2014 and 2019.
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INFRASTRUCTURE NIGHT: President Joe Biden will deliver his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. Look for him to continue the infrastructure promotion tour he’s been on recently, including possibly name-checking some big projects, like the Gateway bridge-and-tunnel effort, or the Brent Spence Bridge connecting two red states that’s been a freight bottleneck for years. He could also mention the airline industry, considering how much DOT has focused on airline consumer issues — including a proposed rule to force airlines to let families sit together for free, which DOT announced Wednesday as part of a crackdown on what they called “junk fees.” He might refer to the supply chain paralysis that never came about thanks to his intervention to stop a freight rail strike — and the unfinished work of securing paid sick leave for rail workers.
PROMISES, PROMISES: Last year, Biden used his speech to promise to “start fixing” thousands of miles of roads and bridges, and also pledged to “crack down” on oceangoing container shippers. How did those promises fare?
“This year, we will start fixing over 65,000 miles of highway and 1,500 bridges in disrepair.” It’s hard to precisely track the way states spend federal transportation money that flows mostly to state DOTs, but on Friday the White House said it had made good on the promise, saying the nation has “started” repairing more than 3,700 bridges and 69,000 miles of roads.
Biden had also announced that his administration would “crack down on container shipping companies that are “overcharging American businesses and consumers.” Congress enacted, and in June Biden signed S. 3580 (117), which imposed new rules on ocean container ships for the first time in 25 years. The law gave the Federal Maritime Commission the power to initiate investigations of ocean carriers without a formal complaint from a shipper, and the FMC started flexing those new muscles almost immediately. Lawmakers have hinted that further legislation could be coming if ocean carriers don’t improve.
BUSY WEEK FOR AVIATION: The House kicks off the action Tuesday, with the Transportation Committee holding its first hearing on aviation of the new Congress. The Senate Commerce Committee will follow suit on Thursday, with a hot seat reserved for Southwest Airlines COO Andrew Watterson. The witness lists for the two hearings are a contrast in priorities, with the House featuring the FAA and two general aviation trades (among others) that no doubt have certification issues on their minds, and the Senate featuring Southwest, its pilots union and a consumer advocate (also among others).
ACCIDENTS STILL A PROBLEM: According to a summary brief provided to POLITICO in advance of Tuesday’s hearing, the Transportation Committee plans to address FAA maintenance and certification oversight for manufacturers. Citing NTSB data, lawmakers note there were still over 1,150 general aviation accidents in 2021, and 24 commercial air carrier accidents. “An accident rate of 2-3 accidents per month for scheduled air carriers suggests there still exist potential safety risks that could result in injuries or fatalities if left unaddressed,” according to the prepared summary.
MONEY TRAIL: DOT’s inspector general’s office drew attention to failures in DOT’s oversight of about $260 million in federal highway, rail and transit money sent to Seattle’s DOT between 2014 and 2019, Tanya reports. Biden implemented new safeguards against waste, fraud and abuse after the 2021 infrastructure law was enacted. Still, the report comes as the department’s fiscal responsibilities balloon along with that law. The IG office found failures in oversight of FHWA, FRA and FTA funds sent to SDOT, including change orders that lacked required signatures, unsupported project cost estimates, poor funds tracking procedures and funds that lapsed because they weren’t spent in time.
HAMPSHIRE SETBACK: Robert Hampshire’s nomination to be assistant secretary of transportation for research and technology at DOT has stalled out. According to a White House official, “there was a mutual decision made not to pursue the nomination and he continues to serve as principal deputy assistant Secretary.” Hampshire was nominated in April 2021 and again in January 2022, but concerns grew about his failure to file his tax returns on time for four years. Bloomberg Government first reported the change in Hampshire’s status.
RAIL UNIONS RENEW CALL FOR PAID SICK LEAVE: The Family and Medical Leave Act turned 30 on Sunday and all of the rail labor unions in the United States marked the occasion by unanimously adopting a resolution calling for paid sick leave.
FREIGHT FIRE: A 50-car freight train derailment in Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line caused a large fire and prompted a local evacuation order to go into effect Friday night, AP News reported. Video the NTSB attained from the site show preliminary indications of mechanical issues on one of the rail car axles, NTSB member Michael Graham told reporters Sunday afternoon. Twenty of the more than 100-car consist carried hazardous materials — 10 of those hazardous materials cars derailed, according to the NTSB. The EPA and rail operator Norfolk Southern are monitoring air quality in the wake of the derailment, Graham said, and investigators would begin on-scene once it was “safe and secure.” A preliminary report is expected in four to six weeks.
BACK ON THE SAME PAGE: Treasury announced Friday it will use the same vehicle classification standard as used at fueleconomy.gov, rather than CAFE standards, to determine the price cap for vehicles eligible for the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV tax credit. Automakers have argued for weeks that that the standard Treasury had been using — which classified several popular vehicles as cars subject to the $55,000 price cap rather than as SUVs subject to the $80,000 price cap — was confusing for consumers.
TURBO-CHARGING PILOTS: Southwest Airlines will halve the amount of jet and turboprop experience prospective pilots must have to fly for the airline effective Tuesday, a spokeswoman confirmed Sunday. Applicants will need 500 “turbine hours,” down from the 1,000 hours currently required as Southwest speeds up its hiring amid a pilot shortage affecting U.S. airlines more broadly, Bloomberg reports. The shift “will allow more highly-skilled aviators the opportunity to pursue a career at Southwest Airlines,” the spokeswoman said, and does not violate FAA rules, which mandate 1,500 hours of flight time overall.
ANOTHER CLOSE CALL: The FAA and NTSB are investigating a near-collision at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, where a FedEx cargo plane was cleared to land on the same runway a Southwest plane was set to depart from, NPR reports. One of those planes was redirected before disaster struck, but the FAA and NTSB are investigating how it happened.
POPPED AND LOCKED: A U.S. fighter jet downed a Chinese surveillance balloon — which sparked national security concerns and a rift with China as it drifted across the continental United States last week — off the coast of the Carolinas at Biden’s direction on Saturday. The decision to shoot down the balloon, Nahal Toosi and Phelim Kine write, bruise already-tense U.S.-China relations, but doesn’t necessarily represent a death blow as the nations maintain too interdependent a relationship to drastically downgrade ties. For now, GOP lawmakers are arguing that Biden needs to get tougher on China, even as foreign affairs experts predict that both Beijing and Washington will try to minimize the incident’s fallout.
— “Ethiopia’s Chinese-built railway creates a $60 million headache.” Semafor.
— “ICYMI: Airbus, Boeing work toward autonomous eVTOL operations.” Vertical Magazine.
— “Witness list for House Transportation Committee’s WOTUS hearing released.” T&I Committee.
— “Brightline begins testing 110 mph trains in Palm Beach County.” Palm Beach Post.
— “Lyft has a plan to dock its E-scooter fleet.” Bloomberg.
— “NHTSA recalls certain 2001-2003 Acura and Honda models equipped with Takata airbags.” NHTSA.
