President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the federal Department of Transportation made a mountain of promises to work on pretty much everyone’s transportation priorities at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday — but made almost no concrete commitments to which sustainable transportation advocates might later hold him accountable.
In what would more accurately be described as a light roast than a true grilling from either party, former Rep. and former Fox News host Sean Duffy fielded nearly three hours of mostly softball questions from members of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, who asked him about salmon culverts in Washington and crop dusting in Montana.
In other words, Duffy appeared to be poised for an easy confirmation.
Those questions, notably, included only a single, passing mention of climate change, even though the transportation sector is America’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the Sierra Club called Duffy a “climate change denier” in a release just prior to the hearing. (Duffy also noted that only eight of his nine children could be present at the hearing, because his oldest son had recently been evacuated from the southern California wildfires along with his daughter-in-law and Duffy’s newborn grandchild.)
The committee’s questions did touch on some of the other important issues facing the movement to reform transportation in the United States – even if Duffy’s near-universal commitments to address everything the committee asked of him were often vague, evasive, or limited to one or two words.
While most weren’t terribly notable, here are eight moments of which we made note.
1. On the pedestrian death epidemic
In what would prove to be the only concrete mention of walking safety in the entire hearing, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) reminded Duffy that, if confirmed, he would “be the secretary of the Department of Transportation, not just the Department of Cars,” and questioned whether the nominee would be prepared to “create a context in which we can all agree the pedestrian fatalities going up is a bad thing, and we should all work on that problem — and it has nothing to do with your views about EVs, or public transportation or smart growth, or climate.”
Duffy’s response: “I agree with you pedestrians dying is a bad thing, and I would love to work with you on figuring out ways that we can make sure our roads are built safer, keeping our pedestrians, or bikers, maybe even the scooterers [sic] safe as well.”
He did not, however, mention anything specific that he would do to save lives.
Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, whose state of Texas reported 797 pedestrian deaths in 2022 alone, smugly quipped, “I think we’re all agreed now that death is bad,” and quickly moved on.
2. On road safety
Pedestrians did not merit much mention, but Duffy repeatedly insisted that he wanted broader road safety to be his “legacy” as secretary, even citing a car crash in which his wife was severely injured by a driver who’d fallen asleep at the wheel, killing all the other passengers in her car.
When asked by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) what the “Department’s plan [would] be to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries under your leadership,” Duffy could only offer the vague commitment to “work with you to figure out what steps we can take to make sure our roadways are safer for everybody.”
He did, however, commit to “look at” the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Act, which would help close gaps in trail networks across America.
3. On public transit
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) cited the soaring cost of automobile ownership when she asked whether Rep. Duffy would be committed to “working with this committee on public transit investment.”
Duffy’s response was just one word: “Yes.”
Duffy was similarly terse later in the hearing, when Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) asked for his commitment to confront transit delays in the Garden State, to which the nominee said he welcomed the opportunity to “learn more about the issues that you have.”
He did not, however, signal that he would reverse the previous Trump administration’s track record of awarding discretionary grants to highway expansions that might have otherwise gone to shared modes.
4. On highways
Duffy didn’t explicitly signal his intention to expand America’s roads and highways — a move which experts warn only induces demand and increases emissions in the long run — but he did repeatedly refer to Trump’s desire to build “big, durable projects that connect our country and connect our people” and “reduce the red tape that slows critical infrastructure projects,” both of which are common Republican dogwhistles for adding lanes without rigorous environmental review.
Later, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) challenged Duffy to “look at where those federal highway dollars are spent and [place] them in areas with growing needs rather than areas that are losing population” — a challenge which Duffy accepted.
“Obviously, Tennessee is expanding; Florida is expanding; [these are] states that have infrastructure that was never set up to have this many people come in,” Duffy said. “So I would look forward to working on where we can cut red tape. And this is a space that I have to actually get into the department, should I be confirmed — because I think depending on the program, depending on whether it’s rail or roads, the answer is different, but I would like to partner with you and make sure that we bring efficiency to the Department of Transportation, so we can have a great buildouts and places like Tennessee.”
Duffy did not clarify what would be different about expediting approval for improving “rail or roads,” or discuss which the research on which strategies actually work to cure congestion.
5. On the Highway Trust Fund
When Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) asked Duffy whether he had a plan to address the shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund, Duffy gave one of his most forthcoming answers of the day — though he didn’t exactly provide a solution:
“I think there’s been three scenarios talked about,” he said. “You can increase the gas tax — I’m not going to join you in that effort. … We could increase tolling. Or there’s a miles-driven form [of taxation] that could be used as well. My concern with that, though, is the privacy around the American citizens. So I think that’s a conversation that will fall within the purview of this committee, but I’d be happy to work with you.”
He offered no concrete answer to how to increase revenues to a fund whose core tax hasn’t been raised since four years before he joined the cast of the Real World: Boston. But he did say that EV users “should pay for the use of our roads” and acknowledged that “how to do that is, I think, a little more challenging.” He also promised to cut the costs of providing a national transportation network by “making sure there’s more available dollars, not for studies and consultants, but more for turning dirt.”
Considering those “studies and consultants” are often the only barrier between communities and a range of climate, equity, and safety disasters, sustainable transportation advocates might be a little pessimistic.
6. On passenger rail
Duffy made several vague commitments to the future of passenger rail, promising Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) that he’d support some version of Amtrak service in all of their districts. (In Rochester’s case, he noted that “maybe there’s other better options” than rail service, like “buses or other forms of transportation.”)
Duffy also defended his long track record of voting against passenger rail funding during his time in Congress, because at the time, he represented a district that doesn’t “have any Amtrak” — but as he steps into a national role, he recognizes “it’s [about] more than just northern Wisconsin.”
When it came to high speed rail, though, Duffy didn’t express as much support, especially after Cruz (R-Texas) claimed that “financial obstacles have only grown for the California high speed rail project,” which he says “currently has an unfunded gap of roughly $100 billion — and yet the Biden administration doubled down by awarding more than $4 billion in taxpayer dollars to this ill-fated project.”
Duffy agreed to Cruz’s demand to share the DOT staff ratings related to those awards, because he “believe[s] in transparency.” Time will tell what that means for the future of the initiative.
7. On everybody’s pet projects and initiatives
Perhaps the most common word spoken in Duffy’s hearing was the word “yes,” considering he pledged to support (or at least “look at” supporting) just about everything the committee asked of him. That included, but was not limited to:
- The renewal of Texas’s NEPA “assignment” authority, which allows the state’s DOT to essentially grade their own highway homework and which advocates say has resulted in the too-swift passage of a raft of deadly, community-destroying, and polluting highway projects.
- Promptly releasing funds authorized under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which he is legally required to do, though some fear Trump will pressure Duffy to withhold money through the illegal use of his presidential impoundment authority
- Supporting the SHE DRIVES Act, which would require the use of crash test dummies that better represent the physiognomy of people assigned female at birth
- Developing “clear rules that are going to allow our innovators to stay in America and develop products that are going to advance autonomous vehicles”
- Letting “NHTSA do their investigation” in response to the standing general order requiring the department to look into all crashes involving autonomous vehicles, as is currently legally required of them (unless the next administration quashes the order, as sources suggest they might)
- Supporting the crucial Gateway Tunnel project in the Northeast Corridor (though Duffy did say he wanted to “look at what funding has gone out” first)
- Following a law requiring NHTSA to set maximum fuel economy standards, which the next administration is widely expected to weaken
- Implementing the All Stations Accessibility Program Act to make transit stations accessible, at least if it passes
- Providing a timeline to complete an overdue rule-making on mandating impaired driving prevention technology on new cars
- Basing hiring decisions on “merit” rather than diversity, equity and inclusion, which Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) claimed guided too much of the decision-making during the Biden administration, signaling a need to “refocus the department on building the big, beautiful roads as President Trump says.”
8. On fish procreation
Don’t worry, guys: Duffy made it clear that he will support addressing culverts that effect wildlife migration patterns, because he “love[s] salmon spawning.”
