WASHINGTON — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has joined the list of those scheduled to testify at next week’s Surface Transportation Board hearing, Urgent Issues in Freight Rail Service, leading to an adjustment of the schedule for the two-day hearing.
The board said in a press release that Buttigieg is scheduled to speak first on Tuesday, April 26., when the hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. EDT. He will be followed by two other government officials, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Dr. Jewel H. Brounaugh, and Commissioner Cazrl W. Bentzel of the Federal Maritime Commission.
The second day of the hearing is now scheduled to begin a half-hour earlier, at 9 a.m. EDT.
The hearing will be live streamed both days at the STB YouTube page. The original testimony schedule, prior to the addition of Buttigieg, is available here.
Remember Elizabeth Dole & Elaine Chow both gifted with Sec of Labor & Transportation positions for being married to influential Congressmen no background to qualify them for either position. Although E. Chow die use her position for insider info to benefit her families shipping co.
It doesn’t matter what Pete says. It will be written by DOT staff and backed up by anonymous civil-service research (coordinated with STB professional staff perhaps) that focuses on shipper complaints of delays and service disruptions. He’s bringing *attention* to this topic, not expertise. The Class I RRs with their PSR schemes and “Hi Viz” approach to labor have brought this on themselves.
Nothing like politics to wind ’em all up. LOL Imagine if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or even Hillary Clinton were testifying! The Internet would break.
Look for the keywords:
“climate change caused this”
“railroads do not support equity”
Look for the keywords “Railroads were built in minority neighborhoods”. Oh that was freeways, forgot. Mayor Pete said it was the freeways.
Which BTW is untrue. Mayor Pete saying it makes it true, but it’s not true. I know every neighborhood in Detroit, know what this ethnic mix was there at the time the freeways were built …. most of the freeways were built in white neighborhoods. Now Pete and his ilk want to remove part of the Chrysler Freeway – the only part that actually was built in a minority neighborhood — because all those cars and trucks will have less impact if on a surface boulevard. The man has half the intelligence as my cat Burlington.
What a joke Pete-boy is; just add in Kamala to this meeting to have perfect bookends of word salad without saying anything. At least Elaine Chao knew something about shipping; was smart enough to bring on Batory for the FRA. Pete not only is handicapped to offer constructive input to the STB, but is pathetically irrelevant re Amtrak.
For anybody who still questions why Amtrak continues to falter and fail these days, despite the infusion of so much cash, just look how this Sec Transportation continues to tolerate his mirror image of Gardner/Coscia, who also reflect a genuine lack of relevant experience.
Perhaps this explains the lack of urgency to replace such an insufficient, inexperienced Board, as who with any track record of competence wants to lend their name to steward such a failed SOE? Unlike the past under Claytor, today’s State-Owned Enterprise lacks the political moxie to stand on its own; is beholden to Sen Schumer and his cronies at NYNJPA, who have identified the marching orders of Amtrak at the expense of a national network.
In his wild attacks against the railroad industry, if only Biden really understood the need to breakdown market dominance personified by Amtrak’s elected monopoly. Competition should be encouraged; e.g., to allow FlixMobility to provide competitive services; to open new routes Amtrak does not serve, but prevents any other operator to enter, let alone deal directly with the Class 1s.
Anyone that wants to hear from “peteeee boy” doesn’t even need to be there.
Those speaking to register complaints need to really get after the PSR railroads and how they have screwed up their company’s ability to run on time trains. Their first reaction to rising fuel prices was to slow down trains and at the same time slap fuel surcharges on their customers. They never once realized that slowing down trains would clog up their railroads. Same with laying off to many people during the pandemic. The feds should start mandating the number of crews be MAINTAINED at all times be sufficient to handle increase in business even if it means crews would not be used to maximum benefit of the railroad. You can not tell me crews would not like guaranteed days off each week.
Its just to hard to up the crew numbers when needed because of the training necessary and getting new hires hands on training. Tell the railroads they brought it all on themselves when they complain of having to hire to many people.
The one and only policy of the Easter Bunny Party I concur with is the Easter Bunny’s supposed support of public transportation. Which is to say, throw money at it and see if there may be some positive result. We have Amtrak Joe as president and a supposedly brilliant SecDOT … and what do we have? (1) Amtrak is in utter shambles. (2) Public transportation which was losing patronage and bleeding money before COVID, now is trying to make it on 30% of previous pre-COVID passenger count.
The Easter Bunny Party will take the side of the unions and will underwrite the pensions of transportation authority retirees. Beyond that, nothing. Just in the past few days, the Easter Bunny has promulgated two policies that will greatly increase the cost of infrastructure projects. (1) Require domestic steel (2) Revert to endless environmental reviews.
Every contractor is scrambling for materials and for labor, pushing back projects large, small and trivial by months or a year and increasing the cost. How in God’s name can we build the Gateway Tunnels when my church’s electrical contractor can’t get twenty light fixtures for the school cafeteria.
Keep on trucking Charles, the country and the railroads have reached the nadir and can’t and have not a clue across the board
Possibly the least qualified witness to ever testify in front of the STB. Maybe prioritize people with actual Freight Rail or Logistics experience.
I concur.. What exactly will he even testify? He has no freight experience at all… Will he testify how CN, or NS held up a crossing for a few hours in South Bend?……. On some side street?…
What are you talking about? South Bend has a huge transportation system consisting of about 50 transit buses!
Probably most people reading this have more experience in transportation than Buttigieg.