Tag Archives: Department of Transportation

The Democrats Are Trying This Again

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Remember Beto O’Rourke? At one point he was going to be the future of the Democrat party. His real name was Robert Francis O’Rourke, but Beto was added to appeal to the ethnic population in Texas. The campaign to make him the future of the Democrat party was unsuccessful–there was just too much there that didn’t work. So they are doing it again with someone new.

On Sunday, Newsbusters reported:

If you thought that the effort to make Pete Buttigieg into a thing has waned or diminished in light of his tenure as Secretary of Transportation, think again. CBS Sunday Morning leveraged a treacly Father’s Day profile of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and husband Chasten into an infomercial hyping a 2028 presidential run. 

The article includes an interview of Pete Buttigieg by correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti. Somehow I doubt there were any questions regarding the Department of Transportation’s handling of the trail wreck in Palestine, Ohio.

The article concludes:

From there the interview goes into the adoption process and into exaggerated puffing up of Buttigieg’s tenure as Transportation Secretary, leading viewers to infer the construction of a private railway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles as an accomplishment of his own. It is then that the interview winds down at the Department of Transportation, and with Buttigieg’s emotional nonanswer on 2028.

The 2024 presidential campaign is in full swing but CBS, with its gross campaign infomercial, is enabling 2028 ambitions. Expect more of this as we get deeper into the cycle.

The silly season for 2028 has already begun.

 

When The Courts Limit The Bureaucracy, Life Is Good!

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On Friday, The Epoch Times reported that a Texas judge has struck down a regulation that was issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 2023.

The article reports:

The rule was issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 2023 as part of President Biden’s efforts to slash carbon emissions in half by 2030.

Specifically, it required state transportation departments and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to both measure their transportation-related emissions on the U.S. highway system and set their own emission reduction targets.

Additionally, the measure required state DOTs and MPOs to report biennially on their progress in meeting the declining targets. FHWA would also assess the state’s progress toward achieving those targets, according to the rule.

Texas sued the DOT in December, arguing the agency lacked legal authority from Congress to enact the rule, and that it violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

In his ruling, Judge James Hendrix of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed, stating that the Biden administration lacked authority under law to impose the greenhouse gas emissions performance measure.

“When a regulation attempts to override statutory text, the regulation loses every time, regulations can’t punch holes in the rules Congress has laid down,” the judge wrote, citing a previous case, Djie v. Garland.

The article concludes:

In finalizing the rule in December last year, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the performance measure would provide states with a “clear and consistent framework to track carbon pollution and the flexibility to set their own climate targets.” Officials also said transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

A spokesperson for the highway administration, which is part of the Transportation Department, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement: “ The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) remain committed to supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate goals of cutting carbon pollution in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”

“We are reviewing the Texas court’s decision and determining next steps,” the spokesperson added.

When are we going to go back to the time that the people who were elected to make the laws made the laws. We are being governed by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, and that is not what our Founding Fathers designed. It’s time for Congress to read the Constitution and take their responsibilities seriously.

 

 

Return of Frankenstein?

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D 

We all remember the Frankenstein story where the main character attempts to create life from the remnants of the deceased in his laboratory. It did not turn out well. The Epoch Times (a great conservative weekly newspaper), recently published an article about laboratory created meat that is being produced in a couple of laboratories in this country as well as few other countries.   

The article related that the FDA (Federal Drug Administration), recently gave its approval for the labs to market and sell this artificially created meat to Americans on the open market. The exact process of creating this involves taking cells of real meat and somehow adding other components to resemble real meat. I assume the actual details of the process are proprietary and not public knowledge.   

Why is this being done you might ask. The reasons, as with a lot of things that have the potential to destroy our country as we know it, are based on preventing that ongoing hoax: manmade climate change. Apparently, the environmental extremists do not like raising real animals for meat since they exhale CO2.  As with all of the other climate change solutions this will have a severe negative impact on not only the farmers and ranchers who raise animals but on the transportation, animal feed. and food processing industries putting millions of people out of work. Moreover, the laboratories which produce this artificial meat will require extensive electrical energy to operate. Having raised beef cattle and chickens myself, I can assure you that they require little other than green grass and access to pastures. As this absurdity expands, undoubtedly with extensive taxpayer subsidies, our food supply becomes concentrated into large factories that are more easily subject to attack and disruption that the widespread farming industry. So far, there are only two places, namely, Singapore and the United States, which have sanctioned artificial meat products.   Singapore does not have extensive pasture land like we have and may therefore be excused for this absurdity. I am reminded of a movie named “Soylent Green” starring Charlton Heston, where the bodies of the deceased were being processed into food for the masses. Under Biden, the impossible is becoming probable. Scary. 

This is another, scary example of an out of control bureaucracy that must be reined in!  Another example, is the recently announced plan by the Biden regime’s Department of Transportation to require all auto manufacturers to install electronic control devices in your vehicle which will monitor your location and control your speed to conform with the speed limit of the road you are traveling. In addition, they are planning to mandate fuel efficiency standards that are impossible to meet with internal combustion engines thereby moving to all electric vehicles without actually issuing a mandate. A recent article in the Epoch Times estimates that for every electric vehicle that sells for $53,000 that we the taxpayers contribute $47,000 in subsidies and tax breaks. Sound fair to you? 

If you value your freedom and your country as you have known it, this has to be stopped. Biden has the gall to attack President Trump as a threat to our democracy and freedom while he and his minions are the greatest threat this country has ever seen. We must fight back. Get involved before it is too late. 

Shenanigans In North Carolina

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Governor Roy Cooper was elected in 2016 and began his term in 2017. Previously he served as North Carolina’s Attorney General. My sources tell me that he runs the Democrat party much the way a mafia don would, using threats to make sure no legislators break ranks in their voting. He also seems to have some problems controlling spending in some of the state agencies.

The Carolina Journal posted an article today citing some of Governor Cooper’s current challenges.

The article reports:

Consider, for example, the current cash crunch at North Carolina’s Department of Transportation. Secretary Jim Trogdon blames the problem on hundreds of millions of dollars of hurricane damage and payouts to property owners whose rights were violated by the state’s abusive Map Act.

While these costs are real, they don’t fully explain DOT’s overspending. An outside consultant’s report dinged the department for faulty forecasting and cash management. State Treasurer Dale Folwell cited the report’s findings as well as DOT’s transfer of $1.1 billion from the Highway Trust Fund to the Highway Fund without his legally required authorization as reasons why Cooper should replace Trogdon.

Rather than responding to these specific concerns, the governor’s press office put out a statement rejecting what it termed “a financial lecture from the nation’s least effective state Treasurer.” DOT’s money woes have complex origins and consequences, to be sure. But Trogdon’s defense neither required nor was advanced by such adolescent name-calling.

Much less money is at stake over at the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, but its recent miscue inflicted more political damage.

The department handles a decades-old program called the N.C. State Scholarship for Children of War Veterans. The department sent out a letter informing colleges and universities that scholarship payments would be “delayed until further notice,” citing the budget impasse between Gov. Cooper and the General Assembly. But according to reporting by WBTV’s Nick Ochsner, there was neither a fiscal nor a legal reason to suspend payment. Whether this was simply an administrative screw-up or a purposeful attempt to pressure GOP lawmakers, it was incredibly foolish.

There are also some questions regarding Medicaid in the state:

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services is mired in its own controversy over awarding a Medicaid contract to a managed-care network led by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina instead of one led by Aetna. In its legal challenge to the decision, Aetna argues that one of the DHHS employees in charge of evaluating the bids was living with a key Blue Cross executive.

Furthermore, according to reporting by Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington, an internal document shows that Aetna’s bid originally ranked above the Blue Cross bid. A DHHS official then intervened to create a new criterion after the fact, which had the effect of displacing Aetna in favor of Blue Cross.

There are also charges that the Governor attempted to obstruct an investigation into some aspects of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The article concludes:

Cooper and three of his aides have been asked to testify on the pipeline at a legislative hearing on November 8. Will the sober-minded former state senator and attorney general show up and provide a persuasive defense of his administration’s conduct? Or will North Carolinians be treated to another round of political hackery and juvenile tweets?

Lt. Governor Dan Forest will be running against Governor Cooper in 2020. Dan Forest definitely has my vote.

 

Somehow I Think He Has Misdiagnosed The Problem

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CNS News posted an article today about a recent statement by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

The article reports Secretary Foxx’s comments:

…“only 49% of low-income neighborhoods have sidewalks” while more affluent areas have near 90%. In order to have a society where “everyone has a shot at the American Dream, than it’s imperative that we acknowledge these challenges.”

Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think that is the problem.

The article goes on:

“So, if we want a society in which everyone has a shot at the American dream, than it is imperative that we acknowledge these challenges,” Foxx said.

Foxx hired the U.S. Transportation Department’s first “Chief Opportunities Officer” in 2015. The position aims to make sure “Ladders of Opportunity inatives are coordinated, advanced and implemented across all levels of DOT,” according to the U.S. Transportation website.

In 2014, Foxx prioritized the criteria for federal TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants by adding “access to opportunities” as a criteria the government should take into account when awarding grants.

“Transportation is about more than getting from one point to another–it’s about getting from where you are to a better life,” said Secretary Foxx in a press release discussing ‘Ladders of Opportunity’ grants in 2014.

I would support making sure people in low-income neighborhoods have an inexpensive way to get to work, but that does not have to be a government program. Neighborhoods can easily form car pools to help each other find transportation to work. The streets in low-income neighborhoods do exist and generally are paved, so I think that the people in these neighborhoods can access ‘Ladders of Opportunity’ if they choose to.

A person much wiser than I once commented that the best thing a parent can do for a child is to set the example of going to work every day. That is the culture we need in all of our neighborhoods.

Another Temper Tantrum By A President Who Does Not Put America First

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Yesterday the Wall Street Journal posted a story about the flight delays that occurred in some major American airports yesterday.

The article reports:

This week the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began furloughing each of its air-traffic controllers for one day out of every 10 to achieve roughly $600 million in savings this fiscal year. The White House dubiously claims that the furloughs are required by the sequester spending cuts enacted in 2011.

Capitol Hill Republicans say the White House is free to make other cuts instead. House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster suggests the FAA first take a whack at the $500 million it’s spending on consultants, or perhaps the $325 million it blows on supplies and travel.

The FAA is under the Department of Transportation (DOT). To illustrate what is going on here, the article points out that while airport travelers were being delayed at the airports due to sequestration budget cuts, the DOT website announced a $474 million grant program that promises to “make communities more livable and sustainable.”

It is becoming increasingly obvious that our current leaders do not know how to manage money. At some point in the near future, we need to replace the spendaholics with responsible adults–our survival as a country depends on it.

 

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I Hate This, But It Makes Sense

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Interstate 95 entering Virginia from North Car...

Image via Wikipedia

One of the things that President Obama continues to repeat is that the infrastructure of America–our roads and bridges–is falling apart and we need to spend large amounts of government money to fix them.  I agree that many of our roads are in need of repair, I just question how effective the government will be in repairing them in a timely manner for a reasonable price.

Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia has a different idea. He applied to the Department of Transportation for permission to place a toll on Interstate 95 in southern Virginia.

The article reports:

Because the toll will essentially raise money from I-95 users to pay for I-95 improvements — including out-of-state travelers — there’s no concern people will view this as an unnecessary tax, Caldwell (McDonnell spokesman Jeff Caldwell) said.

I hate the idea of a toll road, but I can see the wisdom of the plan. If the money raised by the tolls is used exclusively to fund improvements and maintenance on that specific highway, the tolls make sense–those who use the road will pay for its upkeep.
The article further reports:

Federal highway authorities approved placing tolls on Interstate 81 in 2003 under the Interstate Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program, but that plan stalled. State Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton lobbied Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez in April 2010 to shift the tolls to I-95, a more heavily traveled highway that runs the length of the East Coast.

As I said, I hate the idea of tolls, but this actually makes sense.

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