Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" | full interview

and we're joined by the Secretary of Transportation Pete Budaj good to have you here good to be here you know we look at polling and we see them both sides of the aisle griping about people feeling economic strain but it doesn't seem to be keeping them off Plains it doesn't seem to be keeping them off the road this weekend what are you expecting in terms of traveler volume and what the severe weather will do yeah we're seeing huge volumes tens of millions of Americans traveling either driving or flying last year across several holidays we had record-breaking air travel we're expecting the same to happen this year in terms of weather certainly a number of thunderstorms affecting a number of hubs but uh at this time uh it looks like we'll uh we'll largely see a pattern that resembles what we saw last year overall last year uh 1.3% cancellations is it was the lowest in a decade we're pressing the airlines to keep that up knowing that in order to keep that up they've got to do it across even more volume this year and that's part of why we're also making the long-term Investments we are in things like the capacity and the condition of our airports through President Biden's infrastructure package but there is strain on the system when you have a large amount of volume and bad weather at the same time I also wonder when we see a forecast like we just did from Noah that we're going to have a more severe hurricane season this summer what you are thinking and planning for do you need to change regulation because of more severe turbulence as well the reality it is the effects of climate change are already Upon Us in terms of our transportation we've seen that in the form of everything from uh heat waves that shouldn't statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest to as you mentioned hurricane Seasons becoming more and more extreme and indications that turbulence is up by about 15% uh that means assessing anything and everything that we can do about it here in the US uh well in the atmosphere generally but certainly something that will affect American Travelers whether here or abroad now there are protocols and patterns for things like how pilots who encounter turbulence can notify those who might be uh coming in the path but I do think we need to continually re-evaluate that in the face of the reality that these things are more frequent and more severe than before we also once again need to be paying attention to the physical condition of our built infrastructure whether it's airports ports roads it makes no sense to build a road to the exact specification we required 100 years ago have it be washed out require be put back just the way it was and have it be washed out again which is why through the protect program the first dedicated resilience fund of its kind another feature of the president's infrastructure package we're making those kinds of improvements to various forms of transportation infrastructure across the country but so you said that that horrific video that people were terrified by when they saw the Singapore Airlines um encounter such severe turbulence that actually killed someone that was rare but you're saying you do expect to see more incidents like that here in the US to be clear uh something that extreme is very rare but turbulence can happen and sometimes it can happen unexpectedly uh that's one of the reasons why you may notice compared to years ago more often you'll hear the captain or the flight attendants ask you to keep your seat belt on even if the light isn't saying that you're required to keep your belt on and again this is something that has to continually evolve our climate is evolving our policies and our technology and our infrastructure have to evolve accordingly too this is all about making sure that we stay ahead of the curve keeping Aviation as safe as it is uh it's not for nothing that it became the safest form of travel in America uh we've got to treat that not as some mission accomplished but something you have to continually refresh to keep that safety record up well part of that is having enough people on the job right you have the shortfall of 3,000 vacancies when it comes to air traffic controllers I know the new uh reauthorization that just happened requires the hiring to happen why is it so hard to find people and how far into this are you so we inherited about a decade of falling numbers in terms of the number of air traffic controllers in the workforce uh We've stabilized that largely because it's such a difficult job to train for this is not something you can just come off the street and do and even when you were qualified when you've been through the academy and become a controller you still might need to train a year or more on top of that just to work in a particular airspace think about the complexity of this job and the US airspace is actually the most complex in the world the other part of the answer is resources it's why I'm asking Congress for funds to hire 2,000 controllers next year that's building on the 18800 that's our Target this year after hiring 1,500 last year but believe it or not hiring 1,500 or uh air traffic controllers when you factor in Departures retirements attrition that's just enough to about Break Even which is why we are picking up the pace for hiring that also means improving our capacity to hire air traffic to train air traffic controllers we have a fantastic Academy in okl Oklahoma City we're working with colleges and universities to be a force multiplier because uh what we can't do of course is in any way lower the standard but we got to make sure more people are brought in trained qualified hired and retained uh at that high standard to do that work because uh as you noted what I would consider the ideal number of controllers on the workforce is about 3,000 more than we have today on uh Friday Boeing released a report that said they saw a five 100% increase in the number of employee submissions about safety concerns during the first two months of 2024 this is of course after all these high-profile incidents that happened with that plain door just flying off okay it's good employees are seeing something and saying something but a 500% increase I mean that would suggest that there are actual issues here that's right there's an encouraging part and a concerning part the encouraging part is we want Boeing and any uh producer in in the Aviation Space to have a culture of if you see something say something we want to make sure those mechanisms for reporting work uh we have both whistleblower mechanisms to let us know something directly at the FAA but in a healthy company that should also be happening with discouraging it earlier uh if there were evidence of that that would that would lead to direct action I'm not here to make an accusation like that at this time but what I will say is we want to see a culture where that kind of Rec if anything we want you to air on the side of reporting so that's the encouraging part the concerning part of course is that any of those issues are happening at all and that's why Boeing is under a huge amount of scrutiny right now including from the FAA the administrator took the extraordinary step of saying that Boeing cannot increase their production right until they've demonstrated that they can do it safely and again all of this is about making sure that we maintain the extraordinary safety record of us Aviation that's not something that will happen by ever being satisfied with the status quo that FAA decision also goes with it that 90-day timeline and report that Boeing has to hand in next week I that's right those 90 days the administrator gave Boeing 90 days to put forward a comprehensive plan uh that ends more or less right at the end of May so we're coming up on the period where Boeing will put forward their plan FAA will assess it then begins a process of accountability monitoring making sure they're conforming to that plan and that it's getting the results that it should that doesn't sound like that moves quickly I mean the FAA administrator was on another Network this week and said Boeing has a long road ahead to improve safety this is after saying there were systemic quality control issues the need for real and profound improvements these are not confidence inducing uh you know descriptions of the State of Affairs there how quickly is this going to move yeah there there needs to be some major change and that's not overnight work now to be clear if there were an immediate safety issue anytime there is FAA acts immediately it's why it took the extraordinary step of grounding for example all of those uh 737 max9 aircraft until they could be specifically inspected and returned to service so uh while any immediate or clearer present issue will be dealt with on immediate terms by the FAA under the administrator Mike Whitaker's leadership there's also these broader processes uh questions of of culture that go from the sea suite and the board all the way through to the shop floor in a healthy organization and what we're really looking for is making sure that you see the benefits the output of that uh throughout the organization and then ultimately in the product which needs to be at the absolute highest standards of quality and reliability often when we're in a conversation at the FAA uh making a decision they talk about a billion to one standard in other words uh for for something to move forward the chances of something going wrong would have to be less than one in a billion a lot goes into maintaining that standard so that hold is not going to be lifted next week when this report is turned in that's what it sounds like they're going to have to do more to demonstrate their Readiness to safely increase production and again obviously the goal is for them to do so but only on a safe and healthy basis um I want to ask you about something that we hear quite a lot about on the campaign Trail and that is electric cars elect Vehicles Donald Trump repeatedly talks about President Biden's decision to force the industry towards making 56% of car batteries electric by 2032 133% hybrid listen to what he said in New Jersey recently do you notice he's trying to save the electrical vehicle but not the gas powered which is the vehicle that everybody wants they're going crazy with the electric car costing us a fortune we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing the car that nobody wants and nobody's ever going to buy he's not wrong oh on the purchasing he's not of the of the 4 million Vehicles purchased you know what 269,000 electric vehicles were sold in the US market it's up like 2% every single year more Americans buy EVS than the well this is really important every single year more Americans buy EVS than the year prior there are two things uh that I think are needed for that to happen even more quickly uh one is the price which is why the inflation reduction act acted to cut the price of an electric vehicle the second is making sure we have the charging Network we need Across America even though most EV Char owners will do most of their charging at home if you live in an apartment building or you're driving long distances you need uh other options in those Chargers so that's exactly what we're working on but I want to talk about the bigger Point here and I take this very personally because I grew up in the industrial Midwest literally in the shadow of broken down factories from car companies that did not survive into the turn of the century because they are concerned electric vehicles require fewer humans to manufacture the most important thing is that the EV Revolution will happen with or without us and we've got to make sure that it's American Le and that's what the president is focused on we don't want China look under the Trump Administration uh they allowed China to build an advantage in the EV industry but under President Biden's leadership we're making sure that the Eevee Revolution will be a made in America Eevee reol because talking about that President Biden says he going to roll also just making sure we invest in America's capacity making sure that we are onshoring or friendsourcing the uh friend Shoring the materials and the processing of what goes into these EVS making sure that America Masters these processes because look there's no way that we're going to get to the middle of this Century with the technology that that we counted on a century ago uh now uh there are obviously a lot of voices here in Washington who are interested in keeping the status quo he says it's going to be one of the first things he does would be happy to see Americans trapped with dirty and expensive fuels uh but the real and and I know he's made a lot of promises to the oil and gas CEOs about some of the favors uh that that uh he believes uh it obviously is resonating for him because he wouldn't bring it up so frequently if there wasn't some anxiety that he's tapping into and let me ask you about a portion of this that I think does fall under your portfolio and that's the charging stations you mentioned the Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with a 75 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021 why isn't that happening more quickly so the president's goal is to have half a million Chargers up by the end of this decade now in order to do a charger it's more than just plunking a a small device into the ground there's utility work and this is also uh really a new category of federal investment but we've been working with each of the 50 states every one of them is getting form doll to do this work engaging them in the fir handful Again by 2030 500,000 Chargers and the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built but again that's the absolute very very beginning stages of the construction to come but but that gets to the point about not being able to make long distance travel possible quickly if you don't have the infrastructure there right so you recognize most of the charging infrastructure right now is being provided by the private sector the reason that we're investing federal dollars is to fill in some of the gaps in areas where it is not yet profitable for the private sector to do it now again the majority of charging will happen at home and in some senses an electric vehicle has more in common fueling it has more in common with charging your phone than it does with filling up a gas car in ways that are both helpful and challenging but that is exactly the transition that America is going through right now and the other thing again is the price right we have seen the cost of EVS fall to now where it's within a few percent of an equivalent gas C depending on the model you may come out ahead now was part depending on the model these tariffs though as well on Chinese the making flooding with cheap electric I mean part of what we see right is China pouring huge resources into uncompetitive means or I should say unfair means of competition President Biden is not going to allow that to happen to the American Auto industry but but respond to this because your fellow Democrat Colorado governor Jared polus called it horrible news for American consumers a major setback for clean energy that President Biden rolled out these tariffs which he calls direct regressive tax on Americans and this tax increase will hit every family look wrong I have a lot of friends in the Democratic party who believe in free trade no matter what uh President Biden's perspective is a little bit different uh certainly believe in the value of international Partnerships but uh not going to allow something to happen that could threaten uh Auto Workers jobs or threatens America's chance to lead in the electric era of the the automotive industry just as we LED in the first go round it's like less than 2% of of cars um but on something else in regard to what many people might be wondering out there about Road Safety it's uh there are clear standards on drunk driving what about high driving because there was this New York Times study recently that talked about car fatalities um and it being linked to the rising prominence of legal marijuana usage how do you test for that how do you cut back on that yeah that's a real concern it is not okay to drive under the influence of cannabis any more than it would be to drive under the influence of alcohol and uh states have enforcement approaches that I think they're developing around the different state laws on on what's okay but whether or not it is okay in your state to purchase cannabis it is not okay to drive while high and you know we have a bigger set of challenges that this is part of when it comes to Road Safety in this country we've got to learn as a country to take it as seriously as we do Aviation safety because we lose as many people to car crashes in this country as we do to gun violence about 40,000 lives a year now one of my main objectives since getting this job yeah certainly impaired driving as well as distracted driving both of those are an issue uh we're seeing particularly concerning Trends in terms of pedestrians and cyclists but also we're seeing things we can do about it like the new rule that we uh have put forward that will require automatic emergency breaking and uh part of what's compelling about that is the sensors on cars that will now no longer be just a bell and whistle on that you pay extra for but standard on every vehicle is it's not just that Those sensors ought to be able to see as well as a human driver they can see better and they're going to intervene so we're using technology where we can we're investing in safer streets in hundreds of communities around the country that uh and I remember this from being mayor working with Mayors who want to have safer Road designs but haven't had the funding that's changing through President Biden's infrastructure plan and we're also making sure that uh we drive a culture of safety that one day will uh will need to put these kinds of crashes in the pass by uh think of it this way um we already expect zero to be the appropriate number of American lives to lose in plane crashes if that's our expectation for that form of transportation uh it should be the same for uh for roads we cut the roadway death rate by about 3 to 4% last year that saved More Than A Thousand Lives we need to do the rest of it until we get to zero and I Believe In Our Lifetime we can do this as a country secretary budha judge thank you for your insights today thank you we'll be back in a moment

Channel: Face the Nation

Views: 107,293

Keywords: Pete Buttigieg, Face The Nation, U.S.

Id: Ev9Lr4fqJQs

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2024