Near-collisions bring FAA safety summit

Presented by Moms Clean Air Force

With help from Kathy Wolfe

Quick Fix

— FAA’s big safety summit is this week. Here’s what we know.

— More details about President Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget will be released this week.

— Phil Washington gets some backup from DOT’s lawyers.

IT’S MONDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. I’m your host, Kayla Guo. Send tips, thoughts and recipes you like to [email protected]. Find us on Twitter @kaylaguo_, @alextdaugherty and @TSnyderDC.

“You get up every morning from your alarm clock’s warning / Take the 8:15 into the city / There’s a whistle up above and people pushin’, people shovin’.”

On tap this week

SUMMIT WEEK: The safety summit, called by Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen after the agency’s system meltdown in January and a rash of worrying near-collisions between commercial airplanes, will take place Wednesday. Nolen will call together representatives from across the industry to try to figure out whether there are any red flags hiding in the data the FAA and airline industry collect. As Nolen put it in his memo announcing the summit, the gathered panel will “examine which mitigations are working and why others appear to not be as effective as they once were.”

BUDGET WEEK … AGAIN: Last week, the Office of Management and Budget released some of President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget request — but not the sections that show granular detail about how he wants Congress to spend money. The line-by-line details should be coming Wednesday. ICYMI, here’s how we covered the summary documents released last week.

Aviation

GET OUT MERRIAM-WEBSTER: Last week, DOT threw the waiver ball back into Sen. Ted Cruz’s court — maybe this time for good. In a letter to Cruz (R-Texas), DOT General Counsel John Putnam wrote that Phil Washington does not need a waiver to serve as FAA administrator — and neither, apparently, did other FAA heads who have received one from Congress, your MT host reports.

— Putnam wrote that the statute does not define “civilian” and, as such, should be interpreted in the “plain and widely understood meaning of the word” — and that Washington fits this definition.

— Republicans aren’t happy with that. Congress and the president have “strictly, repeatedly and on a bipartisan basis” interpreted the law such that retired veterans are not considered civilians for the purposes of the statute, Melissa Braid, a spokesperson for Senate Commerce Republicans, said in a statement.

“Now a politically-appointed Department of Transportation lawyer from Denver simply denies this inconvenient truth and declares, based on a dictionary and an unrelated NASA statute, that Congress was wrong on the numerous occasions it required legislative waivers to allow retired military members to serve as FAA administrator. His arguments are so flimsy they’d make Lionel Hutz from The Simpsons blush,” Braid said.

— The Senate Commerce Committee seemed emboldened on Friday by Putnam’s letter, with a spokesperson for Democrats saying the committee will move ahead with the confirmation process as expected. The committee has yet to schedule a markup for Washington’s nomination.

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Rail

NORFOLK SOUTHERN FACES MORE SCRUTINY: The FRA is looking into a previously unreported Feb. 27 incident involving Norfolk Southern and how it handled a conductor who was concerned about a train carrying hazardous materials through Winston-Salem, N.C., whose wheel was steadily heating up. The train completed the trip without incident, but the FRA will examine the event as part of its safety assessment of Norfolk Southern, ABC News reports.

— A safety official monitoring wayside detectors alerted the train’s crew that a wheel was “trending hot” but not enough to stop the train. A complaint filed with the FRA alleges that the train’s conductor, concerned the wheel could become overheated — the likely cause of the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, according to preliminary NTSB data — suggested to the dispatcher that the train be stopped and inspected. The dispatcher overruled the concern and told the train to carry on toward a heavily populated area.

Infrastructure

SECURING THE CLOUD: Governments and businesses have spent two decades rushing to the cloud — trusting some of their most sensitive data, including about critical infrastructure like pipelines, to tech giants that promised near-limitless storage, powerful software and the know-how to keep it safe.

— Now the White House worries that the cloud is becoming a huge security vulnerability, John Sakellariadis reports. So it’s embarking on the nation’s first comprehensive plan to regulate the security practices of cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle, whose servers provide data storage and computing power for customers ranging from mom-and-pop businesses to the Pentagon and CIA. In its new cyber strategy, the White House proposes regulation such as holding software makers liable for insecure code and imposing stronger security mandates on critical infrastructure companies, like the cloud providers.

— The push for more regulations isn’t getting immediate objections from the cloud industry. But if the White House can’t get the results it wants through existing regulations and cajoling companies into improving practices voluntarily, it will have to hit up Congress. And that could be its biggest hurdle, as some Republicans have already criticized the administration’s national cybersecurity strategy for its heavy emphasis on regulation.

On the Hill

T&I GRAPHIC ALERT: Check out a new Datapoint that breaks down the House Transportation Committee and all its members and subcommittees.

Automobiles

ENFORCING RIGHT TO REPAIR: Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell issued notice last week that she intends to begin enforcing the state’s vehicle right-to-repair law on June 1. Voters approved a ballot initiative in 2020 to give car owners and independent mechanics access to data that cars send wirelessly to dealers, but enforcement of the law was stalled after the Alliance for Automotive Innovation sued to block it, arguing that it exposed vehicle data to cyberattacks.

“The people of Massachusetts deserve the benefit of the law they approved more than two years ago,” Campbell wrote. “Consumers and independent repair shops deserve to know whether they will receive access to vehicle repair data in the manner provided by the law. Auto manufacturers (“OEMs”) and dealers need to understand their obligations under the law and take action to achieve compliance.”

Shifting Gears

Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co. Inc., will serve as the Alliance for Automotive Innovation’s 2023 board chair. José Muñoz, president and global COO of Hyundai Motor Company, and president and CEO of Hyundai and Genesis Motor North America, will serve as the association’s vice chair.

The Autobahn

— “How Tesla opening its supercharger network alters the EV charging map.” The Wall Street Journal.

— “Teens are stealing more cars. They learn how on social media.” The New York Times.

— “Proposed EV fee falls short of solving Pennsylvania’s infrastructure woes.” The Center Square.

— “GM wants to bring ChatGPT-like assistant to drivers.” Semafor.