DOT Nominee and Project 2025 Alum Faces Senate Questions

By Sean Jeans-Gail, V.P. of Gov’ Affairs + Policy

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Steven Bradbury, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation, faced questions today from the Senate Committee on Science, Transportation and Commerce on the work he peformed in prior presidential administrations. Until recently, Mr. Bradbury worked for the Heritage Foundation, and helped to draft the transportation provisions included in Project 2025, which included calls to eliminte several key rail and transit programs.

In response to the series of recent air disasters, many senators focused their lines of inquiry on Mr. Bradbury’s record of decisions on aviation oversight and safety programs during his tenure in the first Trump Administration's DOT.

However, several senators highlighted issues that are affecting key passenger rail programs.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) spoke about her legislation requiring the Amtrak’s Board of Directors comply with federal open meetings requirements, while directing Amtrak to disclose certain vendor agreements with its State partners (Rail Passengers Association has endorsed the Amtrak Board transparency provision in both the Senate and the House).

Mr. Bradbury responded that he supports transparency and, given the surge in investment in Amtrak infrastructure via the IIJA, he wants to take a "hard look" at previously approved grants distributed to projects via discretionary grant programs. He also indicated that he would focus on the Amtrak's operating recovery ratio as the primary metric for success.

“You know just before Covid hit, Amtrak was on the brink of finally being in the black for the first time across their network,” said Mr. Bradbury. “Of course, that still… assumes a lot of grant money coming from Congress. It was a real tragedy for Amtrak what Covid did, in terms of hitting it, and it’s still coming back, but we really need to take a hard look at the economics.”

[Editor’s note: Amtrak ridership is back! The railroad set a new all-time ridership record in Fiscal Year 2024, carrying 32.8 million passengers, surpassing pre-Covid ridership and ticket revenue levels. It’s also worth reading our own Jim Mathews on the profitability fallacy that plagues so many policymakers (although Mr. Bradbury did appear to briefly acknowledge this fact in his reference to annual Congressional grants).]

Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) inquired about the ongoing confusion around the USDOT funding freeze for infrastructure projects. The disbursement freeze, enacted through an Executive Order by President Trump, was initially rescinded after an outcry. However, the freeze appears to have been reinstated through an all-departments memo written by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy; the full extent to which projects have been affected is not yet known—even amongst the heads of state transportation agencies.

“When I met with Secretary Duffy, he promised me that he would follow the law,” said Senator Blunt Rochester. “Congress authorized infrastructure dollars through various programs, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to help our communities fund critical projects and to bring our nation’s infrastructure into the 21st Century. President Trump‘s funding freeze Executive Order and Secretary Duffy’s more recent cancellation of electric vehicle charging programs breaks the law. Mr. Bradbury does the President or any cabinet secretary have the authority to withhold funds Congress as appropriated in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law?”

Bradbury responded that, where funding programs have “some modicum of discretion at certain points in the process, I do believe it is very fair for the President and Secretary to take a hard look at how that discretion has been exercised, what decisions have been made, whether that’s consistent with the legislative purpose, whether it makes good sense or is wasteful, and various things may follow from that. It may be that the President may wish to propose to Congress that a program be rescinded or repealed.”

Senator Blunt Rochester interrupted Mr. Bradbury to agree that the President can, indeed, propose to Congress that a program may be rescinded, but that the law explicitly delegates the power of the purse to Congress.

Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) asked whether Mr. Bradbury would support the Northeast Corridor’s Gateway Program. Mr. Bradbury responded that he agrees that Gateway is a project of national importance, and said he hoped he would be in a position to support its advancement. Senator Kim also asked whether, in Bradbury’s opinion, the IIJA state-of-good-repair funds are being spent in a way that furthered Amtrak's goals. Mr. Bradbury repeated his statement that, given the increase in funding for passenger rail in the IIJA, he believes it is incumbent on the DOT to “take a hard look at how the money is being spent.”