7 months ago
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The Senate connected Tuesday confirmed erstwhile Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) to beryllium the adjacent Transportation secretary, putting him successful spot to pb a sprawling bureau that oversees aerial travel, highways, pipelines and railroads.
President Trump’s Cabinet nominee received bipartisan backing and was confirmed Tuesday with a 77-22 vote.
Duffy was expected to easy wide the voting threshold. He was unanimously precocious retired of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee with a 28-0 ballot past week, and successful a unanimous procedural ballot connected the Senate floor Monday evening.
The erstwhile five-term congressman volition instrumentality implicit an bureau that has implicit 55,000 employees and a fund of much than $100 billion.
He told senators during his confirmation proceeding earlier this period that helium would absorption connected improving aviation and road safety.
Duffy, a erstwhile lobbyist, besides said helium volition enactment to tackle the aerial postulation controllers shortage and to assistance reconstruct spot successful Boeing among the nationalist arsenic the level manufacturing behemoth has dealt with respective information incidents successful 2024.
As the caput of DOT, the erstwhile world tv property would person oversight of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the bureau that is investigating Tesla, a large electrical conveyance shaper led by tech billionaire and Trump state Elon Musk.
Duffy, erstwhile asked during the proceeding by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), pledged to let the NHTSA to “follow the grounds and run objectively” successful its probe of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) bundle pursuing a callback from October past year.
“Yes, I perpetrate to this committee and to you that I volition fto NHTSA bash their investigation,” helium told Markey. “I deliberation I besides mentioned to you that a batch of the players successful these spaces, I haven’t met immoderate of them.”
