WASHINGTON — Pete Buttigieg, the previous mayor of South Bend, Ind., will testify earlier than the Senate on Thursday for his affirmation listening
WASHINGTON — Pete Buttigieg, the previous mayor of South Bend, Ind., will testify earlier than the Senate on Thursday for his affirmation listening to to grow to be President Biden’s transportation secretary.
If confirmed, Mr. Buttigieg, 39, would grow to be the primary overtly homosexual cupboard secretary to be confirmed by the Senate and the youngest member of Mr. Biden’s cupboard.
In his testimony earlier than the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Mr. Buttigieg is not going to give attention to particular coverage proposals, and as a substitute will define a broad imaginative and prescient for his tenure, one centered on security, inexperienced infrastructure and investing in transportation overhaul to revive the financial system, in response to an advance copy of his remarks.
“We have to construct our financial system again, higher than ever,” he’s anticipated to say. “The Division of Transportation can play a central function on this.”
Mr. Buttigieg’s supporters have mentioned his background might give Mr. Biden an efficient emissary who might help go large-scale modifications in infrastructure.
However his detractors have mentioned Mr. Buttigieg’s report on police practices and race relations — together with his firing of a Black police chief and his incapacity to diversify South Bend’s overwhelmingly white police pressure — coupled along with his comparatively skinny expertise with the specifics of transportation overhaul imply he has a lot to show.
Mr. Buttigieg mentioned that he would attempt to use his function to assist hold vacationers protected from the pandemic, whereas aligning the company’s initiatives with Mr. Biden’s objectives of local weather change, racial justice and job creation.
“I feel we’ve got a giant alternative,” he mentioned in an interview carried out by video earlier than his listening to. “I’m actual enthusiastic about what we are able to do to essentially construct up our infrastructure base on this nation. There isn’t any motive Individuals ought to accept lower than our counterparts in different nations have.”
If confirmed, Mr. Buttigieg would take over an company with 55,000 staff and a funds of $87 billion at a time when the nation’s transportation methods are reeling from the pandemic.
Mr. Biden has indicated that infrastructure overhaul will play a big function within the begin of his administration. On his first day in workplace, he signed an government order requiring a masks mandate on all interstate journey and federal property. His $1.9 trillion coronavirus reduction bundle can be slated to incorporate not less than $20 billion for struggling public transportation methods. He additionally desires to go an formidable $2 trillion infrastructure plan that may require vital negotiation with Congress.
Mr. Biden — who has likened Mr. Buttigieg to his son Beau, who died in 2015 — believes Mr. Buttigieg can be integral in pushing the administration’s “Construct Again Higher” agenda.
“Jobs, infrastructure, fairness, and local weather all come collectively on the D.O.T.,” Mr. Biden mentioned in asserting Mr. Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary. “I belief Mayor Pete to steer this work with focus, decency and a daring imaginative and prescient.”
Transit specialists mentioned Mr. Biden might use Mr. Buttigieg’s public stature, loyal following and media savvy to advance formidable transportation modifications, which has grow to be a perennial and thus far unachievable purpose on Capitol Hill.
“He’s an excellent explainer of what he’s searching for to do,” mentioned Beth Osborne, the director of Transportation for America, an advocacy group. “And I feel transportation might actually use that proper now.”
Mr. Buttigieg, who met with quite a few lawmakers after being nominated, has mentioned “there’s such bipartisan power for infrastructure” that he believes a deal will be achieved, however that it’s going to require vital work. “I feel there’s an actual likelihood to do one thing,” he mentioned. “I feel the challenges come when it’s time to work out how we’re going to pay for it.”
As presidential candidate, Mr. Buttigieg launched a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that aimed to create six million jobs, stem the results of local weather change and bolster funding in transit, passenger rail and electrical autos whereas making an attempt to chop the nation’s backlog of street repairs by half in 10 years.
As Mr. Biden’s nominee, Mr. Buttigieg has indicated that local weather change will be a magnet for the division, by selling electrical autos to cut back greenhouse fuel emissions. He mentioned he would look to reverse decades-long transportation insurance policies which have led to limiting low-income people and minority residents entry to transportation.
Mr. Buttigieg wouldn’t step into the function with intensive expertise enacting federal transportation coverage. Mr. Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of transportation, Polly Trottenberg, led New York Metropolis’s transportation division for seven years.
Throughout Mr. Buttigieg’s time as mayor, his signature transit achievement was a $25 million challenge, known as Good Streets, that transformed South Bend’s one-way roads into two-way streets with bike lanes and sidewalks to encourage foot visitors and downtown business exercise.
Jeff Rea, the president of South Bend’s regional chamber of commerce, mentioned he was initially skeptical when Mr. Buttigieg put ahead the plan, however mentioned $180 million to $200 million in funding within the downtown space adopted, and he praised the mayor for his “data-driven” strategy to transportation overhaul.
However Jorden Giger, a founding father of the town’s Black Lives Matter chapter, mentioned Mr. Buttigieg’s downtown revitalization plan, together with a program to demolish or restore 1,000 of the town’s homes, had accelerated gentrification and contributed to decreased charges of minority homeownership.
Black leaders in South Bend have additionally criticized Mr. Buttigieg’s frosty relations with the group, and mentioned they had been anxious his lackluster report on supporting minority companies and appointing individuals of coloration to employees positions would proceed.