During Wednesday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) questioned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about cuts to the federal workforce.
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00:00We're going to begin the Q&A portion. Members will have five minutes, and it won't surprise anybody in this room to know that I'm kind of lenient on that.
00:09As long as you don't use four and a half of your minutes to lecture or editorialize and only live 30 seconds for an answer to a question.
00:24But we're going to be very tolerant of the people here because at the end of the day, we all share the same goal, and that is to ensure that we're doing the very best we can by the people who utilize the transportation modes in this great country.
00:41You'll be recognized in the order of seniority based on who was seated at the beginning of the hearing, as is typical, going back and forth between parties.
00:49One other note, at around 10.30, because there is another subcommittee hearing going on today, our colleague David Joyce is chairing the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee.
01:01He will come in, and I will seek a unanimous consent request to allow him to get to his five minutes of questions so that he can return back to his subcommittee.
01:12So at this time, I'm going to recognize myself.
01:14Secretary Duffy, one of the president's first actions was to undo burdensome regulations relating to climate and equity brought by the prior administration.
01:23You followed suit.
01:24You've discussed this in your opening statement today, revoking Biden-era policies and requirements pertaining to social and environmental justice.
01:32You also tasked the modal administrations to review grant applications and awards to ensure funds are implemented in accordance with statute and not extraneous Biden-era policies unrelated to transportation.
01:47You mentioned 3,200 grant awards.
01:51So far, according to our records, you've cleared just over 480 of those, about 15%.
01:59Can you give us a status update and help us understand the steps you're taking to review and how the grantee is notified as we move through this process?
02:09Yeah, I appreciate the question, Mr. Chairman.
02:12We are all hands on deck right now working through these grant agreements.
02:19And, again, I think you're going to see progress ramp up.
02:24But if we look over the past four years, there's a few months where the last administration was able to get more grant agreements out the door than we have.
02:33But by and large, we are moving at a near record pace.
02:37And we're going to continue to move at that pace.
02:39I know how important these projects are to all of your states and your districts, and especially as we come into the spring building season or we're in the spring building season, how important it is to get those agreements signed.
02:51What are your limitations?
02:53Well, it takes time, right?
02:54It takes time to go through and think through these grant agreements.
02:57I will say there's a level of bureaucracy, not just at DOT, but I think throughout government.
03:04We need to streamline that bureaucracy.
03:07Again, we have to do it right, but we're looking for efficiencies.
03:11How can we do it faster?
03:12We're looking at using AI tools as well as other technological tools that we could deploy that could help us move faster on these grant agreements.
03:25We're in that exploration phase right now.
03:27I want to talk a bit about staffing for a moment, longstanding language in our bill that requires notification prior to any program elimination or major reorganization.
03:38Well, the past few months, we've seen a series of efforts by the administration to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
03:45And I think a lot of us up here would agree that the federal bureaucracy has become bloated.
03:49But I think we need to be a little bit more precise in downsizing a department with a mission as critical as DOTs.
03:59The dismissal of probationary employees has brought a reduction to the workforce of 3,000.
04:05When you add two rounds of buyouts, DOT will see a 12 percent reduction in staffing since January of 20.
04:12I also understand that OMB requested a reduction in force plan to be submitted by mid-March.
04:18So the question is pretty simple.
04:21How many departures can you handle without eroding the ability to carry out a safe and effective mission?
04:29So first off, you mentioned the reprogramming.
04:31And I know there's requirements to report to Congress that there is going to be reprogramming.
04:34We are working through some ideas right now on how we can streamline the department.
04:40When we've completed those ideas, we will no doubt share them with you for your consideration.
04:49Listen, we can do more with less, Mr. Chairman.
04:52And if we do more with less, that means that we'll have additional money, I think, through this committee to put back into the infrastructure that so many of us dearly want in our communities.
05:06And so the DRP is maybe not a scalpel.
05:12People are willing to take an opportunity to retire, to resign.
05:19We should take them up on that.
05:21And if we have shortfalls, I am mission-driven.
05:25The president loves this department, loves the work that we do.
05:28You all care about the work that we do.
05:30If I have to hire people back in, I'll do that to make sure we can do the work.
05:36But if I have people who don't want to be there, that want to take the offer, well, let's get some people in who are hungry to do the work.
05:44That's what I'm looking for.
05:45And so we're going to make it work.
05:47It's not a scalpel, but it's an opportunity for us to reduce the force, get the work done, and save the American people money.
05:54I thank the gentleman.
05:55Mr. Kleinberg.