'Is There An Implementation Plan?': Salud Carbajal Questions Sean Duffy About Discontinuing PFAS Use

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At a House Transportation Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) questioned Sc. Sean Duffy about discontinuing PFAS use.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for coming here today, Secretary Duffy.

00:04I want to extend my gratitude to you and your team for being responsive on my staff's inquiries,

00:11my personal inquiries regarding some grant issues in the Goleta and San Inez areas of my district.

00:19While the grants haven't been released, I just want to say I find it very refreshing

00:23of the professionalism and the responsiveness of your staff.

00:28So I wanted to give you those kudos. Secretary, while we all support infrastructure,

00:33we can do more to bring the cost of these projects down as we draft our next highway bill.

00:39I'm familiar with recycled asphalt pavement, WRAP, and understand that WRAP accounts for

00:44over 90 million tons of pavement material. This is the most recycled product in the country,

00:50yet many state DOTs lag well below the national average of 20 percent of their mixes using WRAP.

00:58I find this odd given WRAP brings costs down by using less virgin material, reduces truck traffic,

01:05minimizes air emissions, and keeps usable material out of the landfill, while still delivering a

01:11superior quality construction material. Can you commit to working with me and our state DOT partners

01:17on how we can better educate and incentivize state DOTs to use WRAP pavements where appropriate and in their local projects?

01:26A hundred percent. I'd welcome that partnership.

01:29Mr. Secretary, for decades, the federal government has required commercial service airports

01:34to use Florentine firefighting foam containing PFAS. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 included my bill,

01:44the PFAS Act, and established a new grant program to support airports in transitioning to flooring-free alternatives.

01:51Assuming we get our act together in Congress through appropriations

01:54and appropriate the necessary funds, is there an implementation plan in place to facilitate this transition?

02:03And two, in the interim, what guidance and assistance is being provided to airports

02:08regarding the transition and use of PFAS-free foams?

02:12So, I would tell you that, do we have an implementation plan yet? We're actually working on a lot of the grants

02:19coming out the door in ATC modernization, but as money comes, we will develop a plan.

02:25We'd welcome consultation with you, the author. But again, this is an important issue to make sure we take toxins

02:32out of our communities.

02:34Thank you. As we discuss air traffic modernization, can you share how the department is working with the FAA

02:40to ensure these efforts are forward-looking and structured to incorporate continuous process improvements

02:46over time, rather than looking into outdated systems? And can we touch on the efforts to ensure

02:52the system is sufficiently staffed?

02:55So, can I just, if I can have a moment of personal privilege, yes. Telecom is telecom, fiber is fiber.

03:01There's great radar that we're going to be able to, that we have to build them. It's a big deployment.

03:05Those are known quantities and entities. The common automation platform, the software that's going

03:11to run air traffic control, we're using one system from 1995 and another from 2000, we don't have an

03:18off-the-shelf product. That's the software, the heart of the brand new system. That's going to take us

03:25time to get companies to come in and offer us what they think the product should be and try to sell us

03:30their product. So, and we don't have money in the big, beautiful bill for this part of it, but this

03:35is the critical part of the infrastructure. I want to get that started because, again, it's going to

03:40take us, you know, six, eight months to pick a company and then we're going to have to debug it.

03:48That could be another six, eight, ten months to debug it before it's deployed. So, this is the most

03:54amount of time it's going to take to get the system right. But it's like you're on your computer,

03:56you're using Microsoft 95 versus what's available today. It's like there's so much better technology

04:03and this is the heart of making the system more efficient and safer. And I hope that the

04:09Congress will give us the resources to begin that process. Thank you, Secretary. And again,

04:13kudos to your team for being so responsive. Thank you. And it will be brand new and it will

04:16be state-of-the-art. I promise you that.

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