News : What to expect in 2021 — On Pete watch

Monday, January 4, 2021

What to expect in 2021 — On Pete watch — It all comes down to Georgia

Jan 04, 2021

Editor's Note: Weekly Transportation is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro's daily Transportation policy newsletter, Morning Transportation. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

Quick Fix

A FRESH START: We made it. 2020's over and 2021 has begun. There's a long way to go before the pandemic is defeated, but with the vaccinations underway, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, the runway is in sight, the train is approaching the station.

This year will bring in a multitude of new beginnings in transportation, including a new president, a young transportation secretary and a rejiggered Congress. From relief for struggling transportation industries to an infrastructure push, we'll be there to keep you informed the whole way. Read on for your guide to 2021.

HAPPY NEW YEAR: And welcome back to Morning Transportation, your guide to what Washington's doing on planes, trains, cars and everything that moves. MT would love to hear from you with your 2021 tips, pitches and feedback. Get in touch at smintz@politico.com or @samjmintz.

"Fixing up a car to drive in it again / Searching for the water hoping for the rain / Up and up, up and up."

Rock out to our transportation playlist on Spotify.

GET THE BIG PRE-INAUGURATION SCOOPS IN TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: Inauguration Day is quickly approaching. Is the Biden administration ready? Transition Playbook brings you inside the transition and newly forming administration, tracking the latest from Biden world and the transition of power. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter breaks big news and analyzes the appointments, people and emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden administration. Subscribe today.

Transition 2020

UP FIRST: Biden's first task will be digging out from the pandemic. Every transportation industry says it will need more help, even after the second relief package passed by Congress last month sent $45 billion to transit agencies, airlines, airports, bus companies and more . Whether that happens will be largely up to Congress: Biden has called for major stimulus and relief efforts right off the bat, but he can't just pull money from nowhere. And whether the Hill ponies up depends largely on what happens in Georgia this week. More on that later.

Another early priority: Mandating masks in public, including on planes, trains and transit. The Trump administration has declined to do so, but Biden says it will be one of his first actions. We still don't know exactly what the mechanism will look like, and various modes of transportation have all functionally implemented their own requirements, but the action (especially if it brings with it serious punishments for noncompliance) will be a relief for flight attendants and others who are still regularly wrestling with non-masked passengers.

On infrastructure: Biden's team has said it wants to start pushing an infrastructure bill in February. Practically-speaking what that means is an open question, but the important thing to remember is that the existing surface transportation law, which is operating on a one-year extension, will expire at the end of September of this year. That means what to do in fall will almost certainly be the center of infrastructure talks on the Hill. It's a built-in opportunity for Congress to work on most things we think about when we think about transportation infrastructure: highways, transit, rail and much more. The real question is whether lawmakers end up passing a bill that keeps the same types of existing funding or takes a more revolutionary route.

Key moment: Biden's first budget, expected out sometime in the first few months, will contain all sorts of clues about how his administration plans to approach infrastructure and where it will prioritize.

PERSONNEL WATCH: Another of the Biden administration's first challenges will be getting its top people in place, and Pete Buttigieg will be raring to go take up the secretary's office at DOT. History would suggest a quick process: The last three presidents have all had their Transportation secretaries in place by the end of January or early days of February. But the yet-unknown makeup of the Senate and continued Republican attempts to subvert the results of the presidential election remain a massive question mark. Again, more on that later on.

Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, at the Nicholtown Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C.

Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, at the Nicholtown Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C. | AP Photo/Matt Rourke

What's Pete been up to? The former mayor of South Bend, Ind., has been virtually meeting with people ranging from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to Todd Hauptli, CEO of the American Association of Airport Executives. He's been hitting the TV news circuit with an interview on MSNBC and starting to talk transpo on his Twitter account. And he and husband Chasten have picked up a new board game, Pan Am, which is incidentally not the first transportation-related game they've been known to play. Buttigieg's flurry of activity is just another reminder that he'll be coming into the agency with arguably more national celebrity than any secretary before him, and he'll be closely watched by a far larger audience than DOT usually claims.

Other top DOT jobs: In general, it will be a few months before Biden starts choosing and nominating other jobs at DOT, in the secretary's office and atop the many administrations. One door that won't likely revolve: Steve Dickson, who heads the FAA. The job carries with it a five-year term, of which he's served only one year. There have been some calls from safety advocates (and at least one Democratic member of Congress, Mark DeSaulnier ) to remove Dickson and replace him with pilot and speaker Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, but the chances of that seem slim, and Biden hasn't addressed the issue. In addition, despite having been nominated by Trump, Dickson has plenty of fans in the industry.

For instance: "Dickson has done a fabulous job," Patricia Gilbert, executive vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a recent interview "For the sake of stability at a very important agency, he needs to stay in place."

On the Hill

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO GEORGIA: The runoff election on Tuesday has the power to decisively shape the Biden administration one way or another. It will affect everything from how quickly Buttigieg and other nominees can be confirmed to how ambitious an infrastructure overhaul the White House can aim for. The two races could very easily be the difference between Democrats passing a massive Green New Deal-esque infrastructure package of campaign trail dreams, and Congress getting mired in a partisan, divided government fight that ends in a largely status quo surface transportation bill. The most recent polls have shown a close race.

A NEW YEAR MEANS A NEW HUDDLE IS HERE: Huddle, our daily congressional must-read, has a new author! Olivia Beavers took the reins this week, and she has the latest news and whispers from the Speakers' Lobby. Don't miss out, subscribe to our Huddle newsletter, the essential guide to all things Capitol Hill. Subscribe today.