| | | | | |  | | By Irie Sentner and Tanya Snyder | | | — Lawmakers in both chambers have jetted home for an extended recess, leaving a host of unfinished business for their September return. — NHTSA floats a new tailpipe emissions rule that would align with the EPA, forcing automakers to improve their fuel efficiency by 2 percent annually for cars and 4 percent for trucks. — Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent a letter to DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg expressing “concerns” about the perimeter rule at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. IT’S MONDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. Send tips, thoughts, song lyrics and recipes you like to adaugherty@politico.com, tsnyder@politico.com and isentner@politico.com. Find us on Twitter @alextdaugherty, @TSnyderDC and @iriesentner. “And the planes and trains / Are to blame / For tempting us / To refrain / And to cut the cord.”
| | SUMMER VACATION: Lawmakers flew home over the weekend for their annual extended August recess, and they’re not returning to the Hill until after Labor Day. That pauses a host of issues we’ve been following. Here’s a rundown: FAA Reauthorization: The House FAA bill, H.R. 3935 (118), scored a floor vote last week with a few notable surprises. The Senate, meanwhile, has yet to mark up its version of the bill, S. 1939 (118). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is “very optimistic we'll get an FAA bill very soon when we return,” he said during a news conference Thursday night. But Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said she expects to blow past the Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize the agency. The holdup is over disagreements about whether to change the 1,500-hour rule for pilot training. Both sides of the issue left for recess seemingly as entrenched as ever, though negotiations are ongoing. What happens if they miss the deadline, as Cantwell predicts? Probably not much. Cantwell said that “we’ll just get an extension in September,” which could ease the pressure on lawmakers as they sprint toward finalizing and reconciling their dozen spending bills in just 17 legislative days before their Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a government shutdown. THUD: When they return, the chambers will have to come to an agreement on their spending bills — including the one that funds transportation for fiscal 2024 — which differ vastly. Sticking with an across-the-board trend, the House spending bill, H.R. 4820 (118), would make deep cuts to DOT’s funding, taking particularly harsh aim at Amtrak and the Biden administration’s sustainable transportation initiatives. The Senate’s bill, S. 2437 (118), on the other hand, sticks to the levels agreed to in the bipartisan debt limit deal, funding DOT at $28.4 billion compared with the House bill’s $21.6 billion. Rail Safety: The Senate’s bipartisan rail safety bill, S. 576 (118), led by Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) in the wake of the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, has been unable to pick up enough Republican support to pass. It’s become an awkward political problem for Brown, who is working with Vance to further the legislation even after Vance endorsed Brown’s 2024 Senate challenger. Cantwell said many Senate Republicans are “afraid” of supporting the bill. FAA chief: President Joe Biden still has yet to formally announce Mike Whitaker as his nominee for FAA administrator, leaving Polly Trottenberg to oversee the agency for at least the rest of the summer.
| | | | YOUR TICKET INSIDE THE GOLDEN STATE POLITICAL ARENA: California Playbook delivers the latest intel, buzzy scoops and exclusive coverage from Sacramento and Los Angeles to Silicon Valley and across the state. Don't miss out on the daily must-read for political aficionados and professionals with an outsized interest in California politics, policy and power. Subscribe today. | | | | | Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
| | GAO VS. FAA: Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Thursday sent a letter to DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg expressing “concerns” about the Reagan National perimeter rule and requesting “clarification” of an FAA memo to Congress. That memo, which the FAA sent to Congress in May, said an increase of 20 daily round-trip flights at the airport could increase delays by over 25 percent, and while Buttigieg has remained fairly quiet on the slots question, he cited those numbers in a Q&A with POLITICO last week. — In Thursday’s letter, Ossoff and Lee cited a 2020 GAO report that found that delays “caused by the addition of beyond perimeter flights in 2012 were not substantial.” Ossoff represents Georgia, the home base of Delta Air Lines, which has fought for additional slots at DCA, and Lee is from Utah, which is outside the perimeter of 1,250 miles. They requested answers to a list of questions about the rule’s impact on “competition” and “consumer choice” by Aug. 10.
| | | | NHTSA ALIGNS WITH EPA ON EMISSIONS: NHTSA on Friday released a fuel economy rule that aligns with the EPA’s April tailpipe emissions proposal, which would effectively require 67 percent of new vehicles to be zero-emissions by 2032. Automakers have said this target isn’t feasible but called it “encouraging” that at least EPA and NHTSA were in sync: “Conflicting and overlapping rules are complex and expensive,” John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement. — NHTSA’s proposal would force automakers to improve their fuel efficiency by 2 percent annually starting with model year 2027 for passenger cars and 4 percent for light trucks, a category that includes many sport utility vehicles, reports Alex Guillén. NHTSA said “there is more room to improve the fuel economy of light trucks” while passenger cars “have been improving at a rapid rate for many years in succession, and the available improvements for that fleet are fewer” if EVs aren’t taken into consideration. Unlike EPA, NHTSA “is barred by law from taking electric vehicles into account when setting its standards — though automakers are free to comply by selling more of them,” Alex writes. Impacts: These new standards could bring the fleetwide average fuel economy to 58 miles per gallon in 2032, saving an estimated 91 billion gallons of gasoline and more than 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. They would likely raise the average cost of a new vehicle by an average of $932, though the lifetime fuel savings would outweigh the increased costs, according to the rule. GOP reaction: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, called the rule an escalation of the Biden administration’s “war on affordable gas-powered cars and trucks” and said that “Commerce Republicans warned the failed radical NHTSA nominee Ann Carlson not to take this step.” Carlson withdrew her nomination in May amid attacks from Commerce Republicans and their allies. DOT STANDS AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING: DOT on Friday announced the appointment of 15 members of a DOT Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking, which will craft a report “with recommendations for countering human trafficking,” as well as “an assessment of best practices” and “human trafficking violations involving commercial motor vehicles.” The agency said it will also offer a training program — called Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking — for both DOT employees and the public that will provide “general and transport-specific indicators of human trafficking” and emphasize reporting methods. PHASE 2 NEPA RULE PUBLISHES: The Council on Environmental Quality’s proposed new update to the National Environmental Policy Act, which will be published in today’s Federal Register, would carry out the changes mandated in the bipartisan debt ceiling deal last month to speed the building of fossil-fuel and clean-energy infrastructure projects. — But Republicans are objecting to the administration’s addition of a requirement for agencies to consider the “short- and long-term effects of building a project — including the potential of worsening climate change,” reports Josh Siegel. Agency reviews would have to consider measures to adapt to the effects of climate change. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who led GOP negotiations on the law's permitting provisions with the White House, expressed “strong concerns” that the rule could “discriminate” against the types of projects that could benefit from expedited permitting, and would “actually increase the number of frivolous lawsuits challenging environmental reviews.”
| | | RAIL RETIREMENT BOARD GUTTED? The fiscal 2024 House Labor-HHS appropriations bill, which was approved by the subcommittee on July 14, would cap administrative funding for the Railroad Retirement Board at $103 million. That’s $25 million less than the fiscal 2023 allotment and more than $35 million below the administration’s request. “This limitation would severely impact the ability of the RRB to process retirements and sickness benefits for railroad employees and retirees living in every state and every congressional district,” the Association of American Railroads, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, and the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO wrote in a joint letter. They warn that RRB would have to cut 23 percent of its workforce, which serves more than 530,000 beneficiaries. TOO HOT: D.C.'s Metrorail trains slowed Friday to 35 miles per hour on aboveground tracks due to "extreme temperatures," the agency tweeted.
| | FAA on Monday named Kyle A. deCant as senior labor policy adviser to “oversee strategic planning on labor issues and advise the agency’s acting administrator and deputy administrator.” DeCant previously served as senior labor policy counsel for the House Committee on Education and Labor. Meghan Thurlow has been named global head of public affairs for GE Aerospace. She’s an Obama administration alum. (h/t POLITICO Playbook)
| | — “Allegiant flight attendant injured when ‘evasive action’ was taken to avoid collision in the air, FAA says.” CNN. — “EU plans to buy new firefighting planes as climate crises worsen.” Reuters. — “Distracted driving is more dangerous than people realize, new research shows.” Scientific American. — “BMW's 1,400-acre testing facility for automated driving is open for business.” Motor 1. — "Backup driver in 2018 Uber self-driving crash pleads guilty." Reuters. — “Utopia to blight: Surviving in Henry Ford’s lost jungle town.” The Washington Post. — "‘A dangerous combination’: Teenagers’ accidents expose e-bike risks." The New York Times. — "A Delta Air Lines customer assaulted a minor on his plane after being served 11 drinks, a new lawsuit says." Insider.
| | | | HITTING YOUR INBOX AUGUST 14—CALIFORNIA CLIMATE: Climate change isn’t just about the weather. It's also about how we do business and create new policies, especially in California. So we have something cool for you: A brand-new California Climate newsletter. It's not just climate or science chat, it's your daily cheat sheet to understanding how the legislative landscape around climate change is shaking up industries across the Golden State. Cut through the jargon and get the latest developments in California as lawmakers and industry leaders adapt to the changing climate. Subscribe now to California Climate to keep up with the changes. | | | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment