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The House's green surface bill runs into politics – Politico

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With help from Tanya Snyder and Brianna Gurciullo

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Editor’s Note: Morning Transportation is a free version of POLITICO Pro Transportation’s morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform 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

— The House’s ambitious surface transportation bill released this week is already running into some problems, with some industry groups and Republicans crying foul over what they called a “partisan” process.

— Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stuck by the agency’s hands-off approach to regulating air travel during the pandemic in an interview with POLITICO.

— As part of an escalating row with China over airline access, DOT said it will ban Chinese flights from the U.S. later this month.

IT’S THURSDAY: Thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. Get in touch with tips, feedback or song lyric suggestions at [email protected] or @samjmintz.

“Cruisin’ down 11th / Glance to my right, the passenger seat’s unoccupied / Here’s how I know that we had nothin.’”

LISTEN HERE: Follow MT’s playlist on Spotify. What better way to start your day than with songs (picked by us and readers) about roads, railways, rivers and runways.

Surface Transportation

LET THE SURFACE CIRCUS BEGIN: House Democrats’ climate-focused surface transportation reauthorization got skewered on Wednesday by Republicans and some industry groups, including those representing the rail industry and state transportation departments. GOP lawmakers accused House Transportation Chair Peter DeFazio of shutting out Republicans and unveiling a partisan bill that has an “extreme” environmental agenda. Some turned to the Senate’s version of the bill, which included a climate title for the first time but holds more modest goals than DeFazio’s proposal to discourage states from building new highways and include climate impacts in transportation plans.

Two weeks to work it out: DeFazio told reporters that Republicans left “very little room” for engagement on climate issues and Democrats crafted the bill according to their own priorities — and that they’d likely have no problem passing it in the House even without Republican votes. But before the July 1 floor vote comes the June 17 markup, and DeFazio said he scheduled a two-week window between the release of the bill text and the markup to make time for amendments and other input from Republicans. Tanya Snyder has all the details for Pros.

Guinea pig: The transportation bill markup will be a trial run for new House rules that allow the legislative process to go forward remotely, as our Connor O’Brien observed. He notes that the surface vote will happen before the defense authorization bill, and that T&I is a bigger committee than Armed Services.

Aviation

NOT OUR JOB: Chao hit back at criticism over how her agency has handled regulating pandemic measures for airlines, calling questions about masks and social distancing “labor management” issues. “When the federal government gets involved, we tend to be much more heavy handed,” Chao said on Wednesday, while noting that her agency continues to “monitor” the situation.

Her comments, made during a virtual interview with POLITICO Playbook, earned a strong reaction from labor unions and workplace safety advocates. David Michaels, who was head of OSHA during the Obama administration, called it an “abdication of duty.” Labor unions for flight attendants and pilots, which have called for DOT to make health guidelines mandatory, were mad, too. “There’s a difference between heavy handed and just washing your hands of this critical responsibility,” said Dennis Tajer, a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, calling DOT an “outlier” on safety.

An example of the patchwork: Delta Air Lines on Wednesday said it would keep preventing customers from picking middle seats and extend caps on seating through the end of September. “On routes where increasing customer demand is driving flight loads closer to our caps, we will look for opportunities to upsize to a larger aircraft type or add more flying,” the carrier said.

DOT FINALIZES SERVICE EXEMPTIONS: DOT issued a notice late Wednesday easing airlines’ service requirements that are a condition of receiving CARES Act aid. The final order, which is unchanged from a previously published preliminary order, says carriers can suspend service to either 5 percent of the points they cover, or five points, whichever is greater. “The Department believes that the process we are finalizing here strikes an appropriate balance between the needs of communities to maintain at least minimal access to the national air transportation system during the public health emergency, and the needs of carriers to conserve financial resources to weather this time of unprecedented loss of demand,” the agency wrote.

EYE FOR AN EYE: DOT announced on Wednesday that it plans to stop Chinese passenger carriers from flying into or out of the U.S. this month because China hadn’t taken steps to give Delta and United Airlines the OK to resume service to the country.

Move gets results: Shortly after, China said in a statement that it will ease its restrictions on foreign airlines flying into the country, according to Reuters. “Qualifying foreign carriers currently barred from operating flights to mainland China will be allowed once-per-week flights into a city of their choosing starting on June 8,” the story says. The number of flights can increase if no passengers on the incoming flights test positive for three weeks.

The DOT restriction, which would hit four Chinese airlines, is set to go into effect June 16. As our Brianna Gurciullo reports, DOT said its move would “restore a competitive balance and fair and equal opportunity among U.S. and Chinese air carriers in the scheduled passenger service marketplace.” The agency says its “overriding goal” is for airlines from both countries to “be able to exercise fully their bilateral rights.”

Calling all China watchers: The trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship will determine whether this century is judged a bright or a dismal one. POLITICO’s David Wertime is launching a new China newsletter that will be worth the read.

THE LOW LOWS: Airline fuel consumption hit its lowest point in at least 20 years in April, according to the new numbers from DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. There were 447 million gallons of fuel consumed that month, down from 1.5 billion the year before, a 70 percent drop.

FOR THE RECORD: After the New York Times reported this week that TSA officers had been “called out of the airports to help protect federal property” amid protests in the D.C. area over the death of George Floyd while in police custody, the agency made clear that those employees weren’t security screeners but rather law enforcement officers. “@TSA officers who interact with and screen passengers and their baggage at airports every day did not participate in responding to #BlackLivesMatter protests. Airport TSA officers are not law enforcement officials,” agency spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said in a tweet.

Around the Agencies

GOVERNING FROM HOME: In the interview with POLITICO, Chao also noted that while she expects the transportation world to return to normal relatively soon, there could be long-term changes to employers like hers that could stick around. “We’re going to see trends develop in telework,” Chao said. “Do we really need a building for 5,500 people [the size of DOT’s headquarters] when more and more people are feeling more comfortable teleworking … and video conferencing?”

The Autobahn

— “Pakistani aviation authority says PIA pilot ignored air traffic control.” Reuters.

— “Full rollout for contactless payments in NYC subways delayed until December.” The Verge.

— “Former UAW president pleads guilty to embezzlement, racketeering charges.” Wall Street Journal.

— “VRE seating is now every other window seat.” WTOP.

— “Air Canada retires last Boeing 767 after 37 years.” The Points Guy.

The Countdown

DOT appropriations run out in 118 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 1,214 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 118 days.

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Trump faces political risks as trial begins – NBC News

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6 hours ago

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April 17, 2024

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As Donald Trump the candidate overlaps with Donald Trump the defendant, new polling finds that many crucial independent voters consider his trial to be a serious issue. NBC News’ Hallie Jackson reports.April 15, 2024

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Florida's Bob Graham dead at 87: A leader who looked beyond politics, served ordinary folks – Toronto Star

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8 hours ago

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April 17, 2024

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A leader like Bob Graham would be a unicorn in the hyper-partisan politics of today.

The former Florida governor and U.S. senator wasn’t a slick, slogan-spouting politician. He didn’t have an us-against-them mentality. Sometimes, he even came across as more of a kind-hearted professor just trying to make the world a better place.

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The Earthquake Shaking BC Politics

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10 hours ago

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April 17, 2024

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Six months from now Kevin Falcon is going to be staggering toward a catastrophic defeat for the remnants of the BC Liberals.

But what that will mean for the province’s political future is still up in the air, with the uncertainty increased by two shocking polls that show the Conservatives far ahead of BC United and only a few percentage points behind the NDP.

BC United is already toast, done in by self-inflicted wounds and the arrival of John Rustad and the Conservative Party of BC.

Falcon’s party has stumbled since the decision to abandon the BC Liberal brand in favour of BC United. The change, promoted by Falcon and approved by party members, took place a year ago this week. It was an immediate disaster.

That was made much worse when Rustad relaunched the B.C. Conservatives after Falcon kicked him out of caucus for doubting the basic science of climate change.

Falcon’s party had fallen from 33 per cent support to 19 per cent, trailing the Conservatives at 25 per cent. (The NDP has 42 per cent support.) That’s despite his repeated assurances that voters would quickly become familiar with the BC United brand.

BC United is left with almost no safe seats in this election based on the current polling.

Take Abbotsford West, where Mike de Jong is quitting after 30 years in the legislature to seek a federal Conservative nomination. It’s been a BC Liberal/United stronghold. In 2020 de Jong captured 46 per cent of the votes to the New Democrats’ 37 per cent and the Conservatives’ nine per cent.

But that was when the Conservatives were at about eight per cent in the polls, not 25 per cent.

Double their vote in this October’s election at the expense of the Liberals — a cautious estimate — and the NDP wins.

United’s prospects are even worse in ridings that were close in the 2020 election, like Skeena. Ellis Ross took it for the BC Liberals in 2020 with 52 per cent of the vote to the NDP’s 45 per cent.

But there was no Conservative candidate. Rustad has committed to running a candidate in every riding and the NDP can count on an easy win in Skeena.

It’s the same story across the province. The Conservatives and BC United will split the centre-right vote, handing the NDP easy wins and a big majority. And BC United will be fighting to avoid being beaten by the Conservatives in the ridings that are in play.

United’s situation became even more dire last week. A Liaison Strategies poll found the NDP at 38 per cent support, Conservatives at 34 per cent, United at 16 per cent and Greens at 11 per cent. That’s similar to a March poll from Mainstreet Research.

If those polls are accurate, BC United could end up with no seats. Voters who don’t want an NDP government will consider strategic voting based on which party has a chance of winning in their ridings.
Based on the Liaison poll, that would be the Conservatives. That’s especially true outside Vancouver and Vancouver Island, where the poll shows the Conservatives at 39 per cent, the NDP at 30 per cent and United lagging at 19 per cent. (The caveat about the polls’ accuracy is important. Curtis Fric and Philippe J. Fournier offer a useful analysis of possible factors affecting the results on Substack.)

And contributors will also be making some hard choices about which party gets their money. Until now BC United was far ahead of the Conservatives, thanks to its strong fundraising structure and the perception that it was the front-runner on the right. That’s under threat.

The polls also mark a big change in the NDP’s situation. This election looked like a cakewalk, with a divided centre-right splitting the vote and a big majority almost guaranteed. Most polls this year gave the New Democrats at least a 17 per cent lead over the Conservatives.

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