During Tuesday's House Appropriations Committee hearing, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy delivered a testimony.
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00:00probably participate. At some point in time today, we do have other hearings going on.
00:04I don't think that she is wishing to give an opening statement, but we'll inject her into
00:10the Q&A when she arrives. And with that, Mr. Secretary, welcome once again to the subcommittee.
00:17We're going to accept your written testimony for the record, and we'll yield the floor to you.
00:22Thank you. Chairman Womack, Ranking Member Clyburn, Chairman Cole, thank you all for
00:29inviting me to this subcommittee, as well as all the subcommittee members. I think it's been about
00:34six years since I've been back to the House. It's a pleasure to see you all. I'm not sure
00:40if there was some plan to bring the greatest voices of the House together in Womack and
00:46Clyburn, but you guys, great voices. Made for media, I think. My aim over the course of this hearing is
00:53to provide you with a sense of how building big, beautiful infrastructure is a top priority of
00:58President Trump's priorities, and how we can all work together in a bipartisan effort to make
01:04that a reality. The infrastructure that connects our people, our states, moves our products is a
01:10priority of the President. Our department over the course of the last hundred days have saved
01:16taxpayers roughly $9.5 billion. Those savings include monies pulled from projects tied to social
01:23justice, to climate requirements, also boondoggle projects, as well as bringing efficiencies to the
01:31department. Now, many of you have asked me about grants and grant agreements and grant announcements.
01:38So just to be clear on this point, we have inherited an unprecedented backlog of 3,200 awards for grants that
01:50were announced by the last administration. However, those 3,200 were left to me to do the grant
01:56agreements on. So the announcement is fun, but the work is really the grant agreement. So there's 3,200
02:03that has been passed off to me. Those are the ones that all of you love to call me on. And by the way,
02:09we're working through that backlog. Many of these projects of the 3,200 date back to 2022. The last
02:16administration, they were unorganized, they were unfocused, as projects around the country were
02:21stalled by inaction and inefficiencies. No one is more frustrated with the inefficiencies of this
02:28process than I am. Currently, there are 10 to 14 different systems to track the status of grants across
02:37the Department of Transportation. There's not one system, there's 10 to 14 systems that are used to
02:42track grants. I'm committed to consolidating all of this information into one dashboard so grantees can
02:51see how money is being spent. All of you can see the progress of grants. I want to bring you that
02:56transparency, but that's also consolidating the system in which the DOT uses to provide that
03:02information to all of you and to the American people. I promise to ensure that transparency as we
03:09move through this process. The Department of Transportation is one of the few non-defense
03:16federal agencies to receive an increase in funding under President Trump's fiscal year 26 budget.
03:22The reason is simple. The president, he's a builder. He loves to build and he wants to build at DOT.
03:31Our budget carefully focuses taxpayer resources on items critical to our most fundamental mission of safety
03:38and investing in transportation infrastructure. We have pushed forward with the approval of 405
03:45grants totaling $4.9 billion in the president's 100 plus days in office. The president's budget of $26.7
03:54billion in new discretionary funding for 2026 is a $1.5 billion increase over 2025, or it's 5.8%
04:05as an increase, which I'm proud to see that we have. We do not want to take additional funds from
04:12hardworking taxpayers for granted in this era of government where it's become too big, too inefficient,
04:19and too wasteful. We have carefully planned for these dollars to fund urgent projects that once built
04:24will serve future generations for decades and I think build and make this country stronger.
04:31And so I'm sure you're going to ask me questions as Mr. Cliburn indicated what's going on with staffing cuts.
04:39We are going to try to make the Department of Transportation more efficient, do more with less.
04:44I'm happy to talk about that. Also, I want to discuss Newark. We are working through the telecom
04:53infrastructure upgrade to take care of the delays. As we speak right now, the FAA has brought in together
05:00all of the airlines who serve Newark to have a conversation about how there can be a delayed
05:07reduction. So if you book your flight, that flight's going to fly. You don't have people at the airport
05:14for, you know, two, four, six hours and then a flight canceled. So we're working through that now.
05:18Hopefully in the next week or two, we'll have additional really good news about the telecom
05:23progress that we've made. And happy to talk about the air traffic control system that we announced
05:30last week. And finally, I know my time is is over, but I do want to say thank you to Tim and Sherry for
05:38coming. I've appreciated their support. I've gotten to know them since January 29th and the loss of their
05:45son, Sam. And they have they have been a force for good. And I'm grateful for their partnership. I'm grateful
05:53they've been they're coming here today. And I think this is a moment where we're trying to pay what happened in late
05:59January, we're trying to pay it forward to make sure we don't have another another set of families of
06:0667 people that have to fight to make sure they have a system that's going to work. So thank you for being here.
06:12And to the committee, thank you for having me. And I'm happy to take the committee's questions.
06:16Thank you, Mr. Secretary.