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To his credit, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg gave a pretty good performance from the witness chair, before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Through “six hours of almost continuous testimony,” he held his own against barbs and attacks. All the reports come from mainstream outlets who like the administration, though. They aren’t writing about what he had to say on Boeing’s non-existent oversight or the still snarled supply chain. The sanitized version is all we have to go on, for now.
Buttigieg bobs and weaves
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg proved on Thursday that he’s a career politician. He stared down congressional oversight with an aggressive attitude. He bobbed, weaved and counter-punched without providing any real substance or meaningful acceptance of responsibility.
The June 27 hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has been described as a “marathon” session.
They had a lot of ground to cover and spent the whole day doing it. The agenda included “USDOT’s programs, priorities, and fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.” He was terrified they might try to do to him what they did to Mayorkas, cut his salary to zero.
Breaking: we just chased Secretary Pete Buttigieg off the stage at the Meyerhoff Symphony.
Petro Pete is a coward. As we write he is ramming down our throats the Sea Port and GulfLink oil terminals – each worse than Keystone.
We must resist him with all we've got. And we will. pic.twitter.com/aVKeCre5eH
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) October 10, 2023
The last time Buttigieg paid a visit to the committee was almost a year ago. Republicans took the opportunity to hammer him, while they had him nailed down. Pete grabbed a two-by-four and hit back in defense.
These “hearings” are always more about giving lawmakers an opportunity for sound bites in the news. For instance, some members “focused their lines of questioning on district-specific USDOT grant awards, emphasizing the importance of federal financial support to their communities’ transportation systems.”
Others probed Buttigieg, “sometimes aggressively” on the Biden regime’s “support of emerging technologies such as electric vehicles and high-speed rail.”
Planes, trains, and automobiles
Buttigieg endured hour after relentless hour of grilling that covered “myriad transportation modes.” Pete’s in charge of planes, trains and automobiles. As well as barges, boats and balloons. All of them are having serious issues.
Mostly, the lawmakers were demanding to know where all the taxpayer money has been going. One of the big hot-button issues was USDOT Funding Distribution. It’s seriously behind schedule.
It’s a big job, Buttigieg whined repeatedly, stressing “the historic nature of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.” He’s had $1.2 trillion of federal transportation and infrastructure cash to hand out since November of 2021. Most of it is still in the bank.
“Distributing this unprecedented amount of funds to grant awardees has posed both opportunities and challenges,” Pete testified.
Biden calls Pete Buttigieg ''Secretary BootyJuice.'' pic.twitter.com/TWCsvbWiIu
— illuminatibot (@iluminatibot) April 11, 2024
Chairman Sam Graves, representing the Republicans of Missouri, kept poking Buttigieg with pointed questions about “previous hearing witnesses who claim that distribution delays have crippled local projects.” Between Joe Biden’s inflation and the rising costs of construction, many had to abandon their projects completely. Pete had a magic phrase and used it often.
They’re providing “technical assistance” on that, he quips. It sounds great. Like they’re really doing something. In the bureaucrat dictionary, that phrase means contact the appropriate organization who isn’t getting the job done and tell them the chapter and verse of each and every law which says it’s the organization’s full responsibility to figure it out, even if they’re being asked to do the totally impossible. Like reminding Boeing they’re responsible for doors blowing out, or Norfolk Southern for trains derailing and exploding.
