— POLITICO spoke with a former senior manager on the 737 MAX program turned whistleblower — and this is what he has to say about the plane.
— Lawmakers are up against the clock to extend funding deadlines as they face the threat of a partial government shutdown by the end of the week, and have indicated the FAA will get another short-term patch.
— How would the electric vehicle push perform under a second Trump term?
IT’S MONDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. You can reach Oriana and Tanya at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively. Find us on the platform formerly known as Twitter @Oriana0214 and @TSnyderDC.
A WHISTLEBLOWER STAYS GROUNDED: Your MT host caught up recently with Ed Pierson, a former senior manager on the 737 MAX program turned whistleblower, for a candid talk about America’s premier planemaker Boeing, why he thinks the company keeps landing in hot water, and whether he’d fly on a 737 MAX. (The answer is no.)
He’s testified before Congress and informed investigations into how Boeing developed, and how the FAA oversaw, the 737 MAX program. Now, in a Q&A with POLITICO, Pierson says he still distrusts the 737 MAX even five years after he left Boeing’s 737 production line in Renton, Washington.
“You have processes that are not being followed. Breakdowns in manufacturing. Employees being pushed,” Pierson told your MT host in an interview Feb. 1. “The Boeing Company is capable of building quality airplanes,” said Pierson, now the executive director for The Foundation for Aviation Safety. “I’m not saying that all Boeing planes are unsafe. Part of the problem is that people don’t know how to differentiate between the MAX and other planes.”
“The problem is leadership, or lack thereof, and the pressure to get airplanes out the door is greater than doing the job right,” he said.
In a statement in response to the interview, Boeing said it’s made substantial changes to its organization following the two 737 MAX 8 crashes, including investing in more engineers, establishing a point person for employees to raise work-related concerns and increasing its aerospace and safety expertise on its board of directors. Read more in our Q&A with Pierson.
NEARING THE DEADLINES: The days of the “laddered” continuing resolution — which set two different shutdown deadlines for separate parts of the government — are nearly numbered. Congress is back in session this week and lawmakers in both chambers are hoping to work through negotiations ASAP on a path forward. As MT readers know, the deadline that funds some agencies, including DOT, expires March 1, while other agencies — as well as the FAA’s current authorization — are up on March 8.
— Top lawmakers had hoped to unveil the text of a small spending package over the weekend, possibly alongside another short-term funding patch to buy more time for talks on fiscal 2024 bills, but ongoing policy disputes stifled that announcement, Caitlin Emma reports. Meanwhile, House GOP leaders over the weekend signaled they’re considering another short-term measure for the FAA that would extend the agency’s authorities until May 10.
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‘SUPERFICIAL’ TRANSITION: The president of the Service Employees International Union sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying that the Energy Department’s Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation model, known as GREET, falls short of true decarbonizing efforts for the aviation sector, adding that without meaningful sustainability standards, “Black, Brown, and immigrant workers holding down service jobs at airports experience disproportionate harm from aviation emissions” among other underrepresented communities.
To recap: The Inflation Reduction Act created a new tax incentive for the sale and mixture of sustainable aviation fuel, and in December, the Treasury Department announced that it would by March 1 announce updates to the GREET model so that it can be used to qualify for the credit.
But those changes could instead reward “fuel pathways that fall well short of existing benchmarks for emissions reductions,” said SEIU’s international president Mary Kay Henry. “Airport workers and frontline airport communities would be the first to pay the price for this superficial transition, but they would not be alone,” Henry said. More here.
FUNDING (DIS)ORDER: A DOT IG audit released last week found that FAA didn’t scrutinize its processes as much as it should have when awarding grants from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The DOT IG said that given the expedited nature of the CARES program, in some cases, FAA “did not carefully review development grant applications before it distributed CARES Act funds over 20 percent of the time and did not always require sponsors to submit annual financial reports on time,” potentially squandering $106 million in funds “at risk for better use.”
A SECOND TRUMP TERM?: POLITICO’s roundup of how a second Trump term could dramatically shift various facets of government and policy also includes initiatives like electric vehicles — which Trump last month already touched on when he vowed to halt an upcoming EPA auto-pollution rule that underpins EV adoption.
Trump has ample aim and some practice: Automakers and suppliers are already throttling back some EV investment as demand for the battery-powered cars slows. And in 2019, the Trump administration revoked California’s power to enforce more stringent limits on vehicle carbon pollution — which Biden soon restored. Read more on what another potential Trump term means for EVs.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation has named Sarah Puro as vice president of safety and technology policy. Puro comes from the National Transportation Safety Board where they served as a senior adviser to Chair Jennifer Homendy.
— “United Airlines Joins American, JetBlue to Raise Checked Bag Fees.” Bloomberg.
— “Air Canada to cap fares, increase capacity to take on Lynx Air fliers.” Reuters.
— “Concerned parents are beginning to see progress on their push for healthier electric school buses.“ The Associated Press.
— “Justices debate arbitration exemption for transportation workers.” SCOTUSblog.
— “Car shoppers aren’t electrified by electric vehicles.” The Washington Post.
