| | | | |  | | By Sam Ogozalek and Chris Marquette | | | — Rep. Sam Graves has some hope in his bid to retain the House Transportation Committee gavel. — But Rep. Rick Crawford is also gunning for the position, and his pitch to the Steering Committee includes cutting down on infrastructure law spending and overhauling the Highway Trust Fund. — President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team still can’t formally communicate with agencies or request FBI background checks of nominees, including his DOT pick. IT’S MONDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. We’re glad you’re here. Send tips, feedback and song lyrics to Sam at sogozalek@politico.com, Chris at cmarquette@politico.com, Oriana at opawlyk@politico.com and Cassandra at cdumay@politico.com and follow us at @SamOgozalek, @ChrisMarquette_, @Oriana0214 and @cassandra_dumay. “When I was a young boy/ I wanted to sail around the world/ That’s the life for me/ Living on the sea/ Spirit of a sailor/ Circumnavigates the globe/ The lust of a pioneer/ Will acknowledge no frontier.” 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.
| | STILL ALIVE: The door isn’t shut in House Transportation Chair Sam Graves’ (R-Mo.) effort to obtain a waiver to circumvent term limits and stay atop the panel. He’s been steadily working to convince those on the 32-member Steering Committee that he’s the best person for the job — and can hit the ground running. POLITICO spoke with nine members of steering, and none outright rejected the idea of Graves getting another term. Some were supportive, and others said they think the conference should ensure that lawmakers serve two terms as a committee chair — not counting a term as a ranking member, as is the case with Graves. Chris has the story. — “A lot of this comes down to your presentation. You know the vision for the committee and how you’re gonna handle subcommittees,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), a steering member. WHAT WOULD CRAWFORD DO: If he takes the gavel on T&I, Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) would seek to reduce grants from the 2021 infrastructure law; create a task force with the Ways and Means Committee to overhaul the Highway Trust Fund; and look to prevent actors like China from interfering with critical U.S. infrastructure, according to a letter to the Steering Committee, obtained by POLITICO on Friday. Crawford, the chair of T&I’s highways and transit subcommittee, calls his plan the America MOVES agenda, Chris reports. — The lawmaker also says he would end the infrastructure law’s “outsized focus on so-called equity” and propose a user fee model that is fuel agnostic to boost the HTF. (That means it would also apply to electric vehicles.)
| | | | Want to know what's really happening with Congress's make-or-break spending fights? Get daily insider analysis of Hill negotiations, funding deadlines, and breaking developments - free in your inbox with Inside Congress. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | | TRANSITION DELAY: The Trump transition team has yet to ink standard ethics and transparency agreements with the Biden administration, preventing incoming officials from having any formal contact with agencies. That includes “landing teams” of policy advisers, and means the transition can’t access cybersecurity support or request FBI background checks of nominees, including former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Transportation Department. (The transition and White House are still negotiating over the agreements.) Alice Miranda Ollstein and Adam Cancryn have the details. 'IT’S NOT CLEAR HOW THEY CAN DELIVER': That’s the opinion of experts taking a look at the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or “DOGE,” the Elon Musk- and Vivek Ramaswamy-helmed initiative to gut the federal bureaucracy, Derek Robertson reports. There’s even concern that the project could backfire, given the government’s vast support for R&D. — “If you are indiscriminately cutting these expenditures or staff, you are very much at risk of damaging the connective tissue across our innovation system,” said Sujai Shivakumar, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
| | TIPPING THE SCALES: The space industry is fretting about how Musk, who has Trump’s ear, could sway the race between SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin by diverting billions of dollars in federal funding to his company, Hailey Fuchs reports. “People are concerned [about] what’s in place to stop it,” one lobbyist said. “You’re talking about two of the most unpredictable people in the world getting together. It’s not like chocolate and peanut butter, and you get a great combination. You’re talking about world dominance here.” (To be sure, SpaceX is the undisputed leader in commercial space flight, but Blue Origin is seen as its closest U.S. competitor. Both companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.) — A person familiar with Blue Origin’s strategy in Washington, D.C., argued that “Elon wants a monopoly in space.” The Bezos company has been attempting to raise alarms on Capitol Hill about possible unfair advantages.
| | TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MEMBER GETS THE NOD: After making inroads with working-class voters during the election, Trump on Friday tapped Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), a T&I member who lost her reelection bid in the state’s 5th Congressional District, to be his Labor secretary. Chavez-DeRemer, a union-friendly choice, was one of just three Republicans to sponsor the Democratic-backed PRO Act this Congress, and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien urged Trump to name her to lead the Labor Department, Lawrence Ukenye and Nick Niedzwiadek report. (The national AFL-CIO still gives her a low legislative score in its annual ranking of lawmakers.)
| | GIVING CHINA THE ADVANTAGE: Analysts say Trump’s threat to end Biden policies that encourage the adoption of EVs could help Chinese automakers strengthen their hold over the global market, Mike Lee and Hannah Northey report for POLITICO’s E&E News. A report from Johns Hopkins University’s Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab found that Trump’s ideas could make it harder for the U.S. to compete internationally. “I don’t think there’s a scenario here whereby we repeal the [Inflation Reduction Act] and we put big tariffs in place, and we end up on top,” said Bentley Allan, one of the paper’s authors. (The Trump transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
| | | COLLISIONS CONCERN: FTA is issuing a safety advisory and recommending that state agencies direct transit operators with street-running rail systems to conduct an analysis of collisions and implement mitigation strategies to reduce them.
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