Cynthia Lummis Commends Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy For Handling Crises ‘Magnificently’

2 days ago

During Wednesday’s Senate Environment Committee hearing, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) questioned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about the transportation crises that have occurred since he took the position, highlighting the mid-air collision outside DCA.

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Transcript

00:00Senator Lummis. Thanks, Madam Chairman, for beginning the dialogue between the

00:06Department of Transportation and this Committee on Surface Transportation now.

00:09We've got a lot of big challenges and Mr. Secretary, honestly, I got to say since

00:16hours after you were sworn in, you've been drinking out of a firehose. You have

00:22had crisis after crisis, challenge after challenge, and you have handled it

00:27magnificently, and I want to thank you for the way that you're continuing to

00:31work through these projects while you continue to communicate with the

00:35American people. I want to thank you specifically for looking at the Rock

00:40Springs-Wyoming Airport grants. Like everyone else, we're all hopeful that

00:45some of these grants that were signed, sealed, and not quite delivered are

00:51moving forward, so bless you for that. A couple subjects with regard to

00:56surface transportation. EV mandates just really don't work for Wyoming because

01:05of our climate, because of our cold weather. Electric vehicles just don't go

01:09as far as they can elsewhere, and because of that, there aren't

01:16very many. When there are electric vehicles, they're just not contributing

01:21to maintaining our roads and bridges because you have to be using a liquid

01:25fuel that pays a gas or diesel tax in order to maintain our roads, so

01:33we're all going to have to work together to find out a way that electric vehicles

01:37can help contribute to the maintenance of our nation's roads and bridges. But I

01:42have one little sliver of it that I want to talk to you about. The EV mandates and

01:49the NEVI charger program and its related discretionary program budgeted

01:56$7.5 billion with really disappointing results, and it's leading to the

02:03suspension in February that occurred so it could be evaluated. So I want to look

02:13at that program and ask you to look at it with me. Because the NEVI program just

02:20buckled under piles of regulation and rigid technical requirements, private

02:25capital was left on the sideline to address the EV charging issue, and so

02:31Wyoming and other states have millions of dollars sitting idle in accounts for

02:35chargers that they just can't build, and that's money that's not creating this

02:40joyful, happy America where we have great highways and great bridges. So I

02:47introduced this bill called the Highway Funding Flexibility Act that would

02:50authorize states to redirect unused EV charger funds to roads and bridges, and

02:57then highway safety priorities like truck parking and wildlife crossings

03:03could also be eligible. It would empower states like Wyoming to devote money to

03:11real highway needs with potentially billions nationwide for addressing

03:15infrastructure priorities. So I'd like your help exploring this and

03:23maybe other ways to make sure that money that has been appropriated could be put

03:31to use on big durable projects that connect our country, some of the

03:36projects that my colleagues have have raised. So how do you recommend we go

03:44about having a dialogue about things like that? So first, Senator, I live in a

03:50place in Wisconsin that's cold and rural as well, and the EVs do not work

03:54that well in my part of the country also. But just in regard to the NEVI

04:01program, just to be clear, the guidance I think from the last administration

04:06wasn't working. I believe there's been over three years, 66 chargers built with

04:12the five billion dollars out of the 7.5 billion that was directed toward the EV

04:19chargers. And again, very burdensome regulation. And so we're redoing the

04:24guidance. You can have a debate about whether we should have

04:29charging stations or not. You guys all passed a bill with charging stations, but

04:33I think if you pass a bill saying we should build out American infrastructure

04:36with charging stations, we should build charging stations. We shouldn't pay

04:40people to not have charging stations. We have 66 of them. And so I look at the

04:45guidance. I'm gonna make the guidance work. Whether I agree with it or not, you

04:50told me to do it, and so let's do it well. But there's still money there, and

04:54that's a role for the Congress to say, hey, do we want to take this money and

04:58use it for something else? That'll be your all's decision as you go

05:03forward this next year. But I'm gonna do what you've directed, and 66 is a

05:09shameful number. And again, it goes back to the senator from Ohio's point. There's

05:15way too many rules and regulations, and then people can't comply, and then you

05:19don't get the build. So I would be happy to work with you, though, on kind of what

05:23we're thinking, and happy to work with you on what you're thinking. But I do

05:26also believe that EVs should pay part of the cost of roads and bridges

05:32that they use, and how you do that is a question that we'll have to grapple

05:35with. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. If we get a second round, I'll ask you about truck

05:40parking. There again, you know, there's a Department of Labor rule that says you

05:44can only drive a certain number of hours, and then you absolutely have to stop. And

05:49there's no place for them to park. And so that's an issue for another

05:56round. Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Senator. It's a safety issue. We have to

05:59address it. Thank you.

Cynthia Lummis Commends Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy For Handling Crises ‘Magnificently’

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