During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in July, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) asked nominee for General Counsel of the Department of Transportation Gregory Zerzan about exemptions to certain regulations.
00:00Ranking member Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zerhan, under your predecessor, Mr. Bradbury's role in the first Trump administration, allowed for an exemption to the ADBS out system for the Department of Defense.
00:17And it was then later learned that this wasn't, as the request was requested in the exemption, a not very often used thing, but it turned out to be something they did all the time.
00:31So how can you make sure that, as you're looking at regulations, particularly when the administration says they want to get rid of 10 rules, how can you make sure that these kinds of oversights, where people really weren't paying attention to the fact that DOD and FAA did not really have a clear plan to keep these planes separated, what can you do to make sure that that kind of rulemaking and exemption isn't followed in the future?
00:58Thank you, Senator.
00:59Senator, I take the obligation of the general counsel to ensure the laws are being followed very seriously.
01:08I also acknowledge my own limitations on technical matters, and fortunately, the department is full of people who exercise excellent judgment in most cases.
01:19So I would certainly attempt to rely upon the experts and ensure that in following the law, we're doing whatever we can do to maximize safety for the American people.
01:29So how would you, in this case, when DOD came to the FAA and said, we want an exemption, how would you, as counsel, make sure that you're following what is the process to understand what the exemption really is?
01:41As opposed to, I'm sure a lot of people would like to give DOD an exemption, right?
01:44There are those important missions that they have.
01:47Yeah, and I think it's an excellent question.
01:49And candidly, not being familiar with the particulars of this case, it's hard for me to give a precise answer.
01:55But I do encounter instances, even in my current job, where the DOD or other departments come to us and ask for various accommodations or agreements.
02:04And in each case, it is the same process, which is to rely upon the technical experts and seek their judgment and then make a good-faith determination of what I think is compliant with the law.
02:15Thank you for that.
02:15And get up to speed on it, because I think it will come up.
02:18This is an ongoing issue.
02:20And, you know, this incident that just happened in the upper Midwest, also just a reflection of we don't, we don't, there's something amiss here.
02:27If this kind of near-miss things are continuing to happen.
02:32So we need DOT to be on the ball.
02:34Mr. Rutherford, do we need to increase the investments in infra and freight and port infrastructure?
02:41I think if we, Senator, if we're talking about investments in infrastructure generally, absolutely.
02:49But I think it would be premature to speak about individual grant vehicles.
02:55Because as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I really want to make certain that we adopt a holistic and systematic approach.
03:02We've got a number of grant vehicles, not only within the office of the Secretary, but more broadly.
03:08I'm more looking, you come with this private sector experience saying, I understand the movement of goods and services.
03:14Correct.
03:15And what I'm trying to get at is that we are at a threatened point of not being competitive enough if you can't get products safely and timely to market.
03:24And so in my world, because we represent a lot of ports, I see exactly what that bottleneck can be.
03:32And so infrastructure investment is going to help us be competitive as a nation.
03:36So I want an increase in that investment.
03:38I'm just trying to see if you agree.
03:40I agree.
03:41But not only those within the office of the Secretary, but also elsewhere, whether they be in Mayrad or what have you, any other investments.
03:50And that's why for me, I guess my point of-
03:52You're saying make it an ecosystem that works together very effectively.
03:55Great.
03:56And so my point of the part-
03:56We're all for Mayrad spending too.
03:59Only because the market is outside the United States.
04:0295% of consumers are outside the United States.
04:05So if you're not getting U.S. products to them timely, we're not going to be competitive.
04:09Absolutely.
04:10And I guess where I was trying to arrive is my point of departure is really the National Freight Strategic Plan.
04:16And then that should be not only managing what we do at the office of the Secretary, but also influencing grant-making decisions elsewhere within DOT.
04:24Thank you for that.
04:25Ms. Oz, I'd love to ask about what your daughter sings in opera, but we might not have time for that.
04:30To be discussed.
04:32Pardon me?
04:32To be discussed later.
04:34To be discussed.
04:34So what do you think is, you know, you've now had this private sector experience where, you know, we are really basically beta testing and rolling out to larger regimes of adoptions, right?
04:50But trying to do so in a safe manner.
04:53I've always thought that, you know, just starting here and then just saying, well, we did a few betas and now we're going to open it up to the whole country.
05:00That's too much.
05:01Like, so what, how do you see us continuing to move forward in the adoption?
05:10And what do you do about the trucking sector and the huge workforce that is involved there?
05:14Because it's a very key part of the U.S. economy, hundreds of thousands of people.
05:19Senator Cantwell, it's an excellent question, a two-part question.
05:23The first part has to do with the fact that, as I mentioned in my testimony, we built this technology here in America.
05:29And so we have all of the foundational capability to scale it in the most safe way we can by using conservative planning and by using systems that are fail operational.
05:44So that includes redundancies in the system.
05:47It includes ensuring we have secondary approaches like telematics, teleoperations, remote vehicle management.
05:54But most importantly, we need a framework in which we can give clear guidance to industry on scaling and deploying the capabilities on public roads in America in a safe way.
06:06And that's, I think, the challenge with this administration, with all of us, to incorporate many elements of the technical capabilities we currently have and just ensure that we coordinate them and work together on a national framework.
06:18So trucking is a very interesting windfall benefactor for this technology because trucking and commerce is one of the areas that makes the most economic distinction on benefits as we have remote vehicle management.
06:34So I think it's one of the first use cases that we can emerge with, and I'm hoping to provide good clarity and good guidance on how we can do that on the technical side and with research that we've already done.
06:46I mean, yeah, I'm getting you a little out of your lane because we're not hiring you to figure out what to do with 200,000 or 300,000 Teamsters.
06:55But at the same time, it is, when you sit there and you're looking at the framework which you described, which I think is a good plan, having a framework that then you can coordinate with industry and then get people to buy confidence in.
07:07And I thought the same about the drone system.
07:10You know, we had people, you know, visioning lots of drone use in the Northwest for a long, long time.
07:17I think we started in 2001 with pushing the FAA to keep moving forward.
07:22So here it's the same thing, but you also have a huge employment sector, unlike the drone industry didn't have that, you know, existing workforce issue.
07:31So we'll look forward, my time's expired, to discussing this more with you.
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