. . . besides being an Illinoisan. From John Kass at the Chicago Tribune comes this dispiriting item about Obama’s DOT nominee Ray LaHood:
Obama selected outgoing Illinois U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Combine) for the post of secretary of transportation, putting LaHood in charge of Obama’s planned trillion-dollar public works bonanza being sold as a jobs [...]
Posts Tagged ‘dot’
What Ray LaHood has in common with Rod Blagojevich
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged dot, politics on December 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
LaHood’s legislative record on aviation
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged Aviation08, dot, faa, politics on December 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of the surprises about the rumored Ray LaHood nomination for secretary of transportation — set to be announced tomorrow — is that he has so little transportation experience. He is on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and would thus be well positioned to oversee Barack Obama’s planned burst of infrastructure spending. LaHood did serve [...]
Ray LaHood nomination would mean short shrift for DOT
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged Aviation08, dot, politics on December 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I’ve got a busy morning, so more on Ray LaHood’s transportation (and especially aviation) record soon, but I’ll just say that the likely appointment of retiring Republican congressman Ray LaHood as secretary of transportation seems to indicate that Barack Obama does not plan to devote a great deal of attention to transportation issues — much [...]
Getting our “infrastructure” priorities straight
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, congress, dot, politics on December 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s pretty common knowledge that the United States has for years underinvested in “infrastructure” — from the power grid to physical plants to transportation — and thus one of the first priorities of the next administration should be to devote massive resources to repairing infrastructure. And I’m sure the commuter inching forward on a Dallas [...]
Reason: keep Mary Peters at DOT
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged dot, faa, politics on November 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Shikha Dalmia, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, an L.A.-based think thank that sets itself apart in the right-of-center policy community by focusing on transportation, offers a libertarian perspective on the best and worst cabinet appointees that Barack Obama might choose at the Department of Transportation.
Dalmia writes that one of the top priorities of [...]
What’s wrong with commercial aviation?
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged air traffic control, airports, BAA, canada, competition, delays, Deregulation 2.0, dot, europe, faa, regulation, southwest, travel on October 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
My story in The American magazine is now up on its website. Here’s the lede: “Thirty years ago this October, the era of affordable mass air travel was unleashed. Why was this revolution stalled, and what can be done to finish it?”
Obama, McCain advisers on transportation issues
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged air traffic control, Aviation08, congress, delays, dot, environment, faa, politics on October 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Top policy advisers to Barack Obama and John McCain differed on key transportation issues at a forum in Washington this morning, but they agreed, in the words of McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, when it comes to transportation, “the ratio of importance to discussion on the campaign trail is high.”
Mortimer Downey, Obama’s senior transportation adviser and [...]
Small Community Air Service Development dead?
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged dot, small communities on September 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I missed this news item a week ago from AAAE:
AAAE expressed concern that of the $10 million that Congress appropriated for Small Community Air Service Development Program, only $6.8 million is slated to go to small communities that need assistance. According to DOT’s order, the other $3.2 million will be used to cover “current and [...]
Aviation08: The Obama aviation plan
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged air traffic control, airports, Aviation08, congress, delays, dot, faa, labor, politics, safety, security, small communities, tsa on September 8, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Welcome, new readers! For more blogging on aviation politics, click here.
First of all, big props to Obama and his campaign team for actually having a transportation agenda [PDF]. The McCain campaign devotes a whole section to manned space exploration but can’t spare a word for aviation. So, to Obama, an A for effort.
Now let’s dig [...]
Liveblogging Randy Babbitt’s confirmation hearing
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged air traffic control, antitrust, congress, dot, faa, general aviation, labor, safety on May 19, 2009 | 6 Comments »
The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing today to review several nominations in its purview, including FAA administrator-designate J. Randolph Babbitt and DOT deputy secretary-designate John Porcari. Opening statements are going on now. Babbitt is, as you know, the former president of the Air Line Pilots Association and a pilot at Eastern. According to [...]
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