Chris Coons Presses Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy On Potential Privatization Of Amtrak

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) spoke to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about Amtrak.

Transcript

00:00Senator Coins. Thank you, Chair Hyde-Smith and Ranking Member Gillibrand. Thank you,

00:05Secretary Duffy, for appearing before us today. I do hope we will get your actual full budget soon

00:12and have the chance to review that with you. And when we do get it, I hope we will see sustained

00:17investment in Amtrak. I regularly take Amtrak back and forth from Wilmington to Washington.

00:22They hit record ridership and record profitability just this past year. It also employs 1,500 people

00:29in Delaware, which is the midpoint of the Northeast Corridor. The Northeast Corridor is just

00:34really, frankly, the only aspect of Amtrak that has been financially stable for a long, long time.

00:41So if the NEC experiences cuts or some attempted privatization or a sharp change in direction,

00:47the impact will really harm the mostly heartland states and rural part of Amtrak's national network.

00:54Elon Musk has called for privatizing Amtrak. It's made steady, positive progress in

00:59recent years. I'd be interested in whether you'd commit to us to maintaining strong investments

01:04in Amtrak when we finally receive your full budget. So listen, I take Amtrak as well. I ride

01:10the Northeast Corridor. I will tell you this. Do I think we could do better? Yes. Could we be better?

01:17Yes, I think it could be better. It's faster than driving through the traffic when you're going up

01:22north. I've experienced that more recently. So again, I would love us to think through together,

01:29how can we make this better? How can we make it faster? I mean, the rest of the world has high-speed

01:33rail. Why can't we think through a different way to do it? So I'm committed to the idea that we want

01:38to be able to move people along the Northeast Corridor. We don't have enough room for people

01:43to all take cars. So let's figure out a better way to do it. So yeah, I'm committed to the idea that

01:47we're going to have great rail transportation. We have Amtrak now. Could there be ways that we

01:54could allow for other competition with Amtrak on the rails? Possibly. But this is in your control.

02:02So I'm not trying to kill it. I'm trying to go, how can we make it better? Thank you. These are

02:05complex questions. Very complex. Consultation with this committee will help sustain our national

02:10rail network. Shipbuilding is an area where I suspect we have strong agreement. I recently visited

02:16Philly's Hanwha shipyard, as did you. Senator McCormick and I have talked regularly about this.

02:22My community is just 20 to 30 minutes from that shipyard, and we'd like to contribute.

02:27Some of the folks who will work at the expanded Hanwha shipyard, I am the ranking appropriator on

02:33defense. And I think the shot in the arm that Marad has given to the shipyard by purchasing five

02:40DOT ships has been critically vital. Just if you would briefly speak to DOT's plans to invest in

02:47and reinvigorate our nation's shipyards, this is one that is right on the edge of being able to come

02:52into the family of naval shipyards. Yeah. So I love the president's vision. I couldn't share it. I think

03:00most people would agree that the vision of building ships again in America is important.

03:05working through the components of how we funded, how we are able to give a shot in the arm to the

03:11industry, because it's going to need support. And thinking through how we do that is what's

03:15happening right now. I think all of us working together is going to be what's necessary to

03:20revitalize these ports. But again, you look around the country and you see how we used to be a powerhouse

03:25and they've just, many of them have been mothballed. Again, it's going to be a bipartisan effort for all of us.

03:31This is one that's back in production, thanks to DOT. And I know Senator Collins has expressed a very

03:36strong interest in it. A number of members have maritime academies in their home states

03:40and would like to see this shipyard also become productive. I look forward to working with you on

03:45that. You as well. In the last two minutes, if I could, just a theme across a number of questions.

03:51You've frozen 3,000 federal grants for review and have released several hundred. Just to compare,

03:59there was a bipartisan effort at infrastructure investment under the last administration and that

04:05produced a lot of new programs, more than 40 new programs, more than $300 billion in funding.

04:12The DOT, under the previous administration, signed grant agreements for more than 3,300 projects.

04:18And under the first Trump administration, because there wasn't a bipartisan commitment to dramatic

04:23increases in infrastructure, just 900. So to say that, you know, they hadn't managed to execute

04:30enough agreements, and that's why you've got such a backlog. Biden's DOT increased its pace of grant

04:36agreement execution from 330 in its first year to 1,500 in its last year. There's a reason that there

04:43was a dramatic increase in the volume of grant agreements. It's because we came together in a bipartisan way

04:48to significantly increase our infrastructure investment. To me, the grants that are being reviewed that were

04:56appropriated and authorized by Congress ought to be moving more quickly than they are, and I hope you will

05:02speed up that process going forward. So just to be, I haven't frozen anything. So if you have a grant

05:07agreement, that money is flowing. That has not been stopped. And what we've done is asked to repurpose

05:13some of the requirements inside of those grant agreements. We've done, we're not going to enforce

05:18the climate or the social justice, but if you have a grant agreement and you have a project that's

05:22moving, the money, the money is going on those projects. They haven't been, they haven't been

05:25stopped. They haven't been frozen. And even on the, on the announced projects that, that don't have

05:31grant agreements, we are, we're moving again quickly. I'll show you that I've got a, I've got a month

05:37by month chart. I'll share it with you if you want, and you can look at how we've done compared to what the

05:42last administration. And you're not going to say we're, we're wildly slower. We're, we're actually

05:46doing pretty well. And I think it's going to speed up as well. So we're not trying to hold anything

05:49up. We're not trying to slow down or freeze. But I am trying to pull out some things I think are

05:54going to cost you and your projects more money. And if we can, if we can build quicker and we can

05:59build with smarter requirements, I think that we have more money then to build more of your projects,

06:05which everyone wants more projects. I'd welcome a quick call about that outcome, which as you

06:10describe it is something I would embrace and support. I'd like to see the projects move

06:14forward. Obviously in my state, I think literally every Senator has said the same about that. And

06:17I'll, and I'll send over the, the, the month by month analysis to your office.

06:22And forgive me, Tim and Sherry Lilly, we are sorry for your loss and we are sorry for

06:27the ways in which air safety and tragic air accidents have impacted so many families, principally

06:34yours. And we appreciate not just your presence here, but what it means that you continue to

06:38advocate for FAA reform. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And thank you both.

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