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BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PETE BUTTIGIEG ... SECRETARY OF TRANSPORT Secretary Pete Buttigieg delivers remarks at the State Department's Foreign Press Center in NYC. PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv9sLb9kcYc Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Secretary Pete Buttigieg is one of the most competent people in the US government, and an excellent spokesperson for the Biden administration. Peter Burgess
Secretary Pete Buttigieg delivers remarks at the State Department's Foreign Press Center in NYC. US Department of Transportation Dec 18, 2024 15.6K subscribers ... 26,253 views ... 1.2K likes Transcript 0:01 all right good morning everyone Welcome to the New York Foreign Press Center we are glad you are here my name is Melissa WBY I'm the acting director and I'll be the moderator for today's briefing I am honored to introduce US Secretary of Transportation Pete budes who will highlight us investments in infrastructure transportation and international Partnerships so we'll begin with opening remarks from the secretary and then we'll follow from a time of Q&A which I will moderate sir thank you for being here thank you Melissa thanks to the Foreign Press Center for hosting and thanks to all of you um let me begin with this there are a few weeks left in the Biden Harris Administration and that makes this a good moment to reflect on what has happened over the last few years and so much has happened so quickly that I think it's important to remember what it was like when we got here when President Biden took office we were deep in the pandemic facing disruptions to our transportation systems more profound than anything we have experienced in peace time in the United States 1:00 our Global Supply chains were snarled the aviation industry had been brought to a standstill so much so that e economists feared it might not recover at all and at the same time America was grappling with the consequences of a slower motion crisis that had been brought on by long-standing underinvestment and disinvestment in our national infrastructure which underpins our entire economy the circumstances that greeted Us in 2021 demonstrated the interconnectivity of the global economy and of our Transportation Systems the challenges we Face demanded bold and decisive action which President Biden delivered for one thanks to the historic bipartisan infrastructure law America's transportation systems are finally receiving much needed and long awaited Investments over $570 billion in funding has been announced and more than 66,000 infrastructure projects are receiving support from this generationally significant package that means we're fixing roads Bridges 2:00 public transportation ports and the airports that I know many of you know intimately we are funding the Gateway tunnel project not far from where we are gathered which is among the biggest Public Works projects in modern American history and which includes adding new train tunnels under the Hudson River uh that are critically important given the condition of the current tunnel which was built at the dawn of the 20th century and was badly damaged by Hurricane sanding in 2012 and today because of this president in this Administration our regional National and Global Supply chains are more resilient we have created an Innovative program to bring together a network of public and private Partners to share information work together add visibility to our supply chains and better anticipate cargo movement and shipments we've taken measures with our G7 Partners to Monitor and strengthen International Supply chains and today we're better equipped to withstand other disruptions as we have seen even since covid from extreme weather impacts to 3:03 houthi attacks in the Red Sea to events like the Baltimore bridge collapse in March of this year in the aviation SE sector us passengers are flying in record numbers in fact we recently recorded more than 3 million passengers flying in a single day the Sunday after Thanksgiving that's the most ever recorded we delivered the most expansive range of Consumer Protections in the modern Aviation era and we've expanded Global Connect ity through new open Skies Partnerships with Angola the Dominican Republic Ecuador Fiji mova Mongolia and mosm Beque such that the US now has 135 open Skies Partners in total we've worked alongside the member nations of IO the international civil aviation organization to ensure safety in the skies and promote sustainability in the future as we work to increase the production of sustainable aviation fuel and work toward a shared goal of Net Zero emission by 2050 and last week we provided to a our 2024 update of the US 4:05 Aviation climate action plan charting this very important dimension of the future of Aviation finally I want to underscore that the US Department of Transportation is proud to stand with the people of Ukraine as part of the United States commitment to our friends abroad and to Universal Democratic Values the Biden Harris Administration has been clear in our support of Ukraine's Independence since Russia staged its brutal and unjustified fullscale invasion in 2022 in Kev just over a year ago I had the opportunity to take the train from Poland meet with president zalinsky with prime minister schal and with my Transportation counterpart and other Ukrainian leaders to reinforce our partnership and to discuss ways to advance Ukraine's economic recovery and self-sufficiency and we have been clear about continued technical assistance to improve the efficiency of transport of goods across borders to strength than Rail and Maritime infrastructure and to 5:02 prepare for the resumption of civil aviation when they secure a just piece so with that again I'm pleased to be able to join you this morning and I will return it to Melissa to guide our questions and answers right thank you sir so this the time for the Q&A uh for those in the room please raise your hand I will call on you and wait for the microphone as this is being transcribed for those on Zoom same I will call on you you can enable your microphone state your name and organization ask your question um begin here in the room with the Italian republ thank you very much for doing this you were mentioning before the initiative with the G7 Partners in terms of Supply chains after covid what would be the impact of tariffs that the president elect is talking about not only on Commerce but on the supply chain Effectiveness well uh uh certainly there would be an impact I can't speculate on what the incoming Administration will do what I can say is that not only Co but the response to co demonstrated the benefits of strengthening our supply chains and demonstrated the importance 6:06 of uh even the most complex International Supply chains to our ability to uh sustain economic growth um we as an Administration have been uh equally focused on developing robust domestic industry uh and on making sure that we have healthy International uh relationships and the trade and the uh Supply chains that uh that underpin that um I think that uh we have demonstrated that a commitment to domestic manufacturing and a commitment to our International relationships are things that can travel together because we have seen both grow at levels that have been certainly without precedent in my lifetime under President Biden's leadership what will happen under the next president obviously I have to LEAP to them thank you we'll go to zoom Demitri I saw your video enabled at one point if you could reenable that your audio state your name organization ask your 7:04 question oh yeah thank you very much for taking my question um Dimitri an option here I'm in the same boat as our speaker today no one is able to pronounce my family name you know what I mean Mr bu J thanks very much uh just a question um a lot of people in Biden team uh we still got a month and a half under Biden Administration and I heard from a lot of your colleagues that that they will try to accomplish what they started toward Ukraine uh they will try to support they will try to provide money they will try to accomplish some uh project they started during the during the being in the administration so what's your position do you have something in your mind uh you may finish you may accomplish helping Ukraine thank you well thank you to a fellow member of the unpronouncable name club uh and uh let me say uh first that we are going to 8:00 continue with each of the 38 days that we have left to make good on uh on this administration's commitment uh to our friendship with Ukraine for the US Department of Transportation that includes uh planned sessions exchanging technical information and expertise uh to be hosted in mova related to crossb transportation and Logistics matters uh and uh we continue to deeply value the the relationships that our department formed with our uh Ukrainian Partners both before uh and since the The fullscale Invasion um I would also offer two other Reflections one that the relationship between the United States and Ukraine is a relationship between peoples and not only a relationship between states and that the entire country uh as did so much of the democratic World looked up and took notice as the Ukrainian people uh even though they had not asked to be in this position uh wound up uh defending Universal and Democratic Values while defending their own independence I would likewise note that there continues to be uh a remarkably strong 9:04 degree of bipartisan uh belief in the cause of supporting our Ukrainian friends uh the last time I had the occasion to uh Mark uh uh the relationship at the Embassy in Washington uh we had many uh visible Republican as well as Democratic leaders in attendance uh and so it is my hope knowing that of course the the foreign policy of the executive branch will be set by the president from the White House it will also though be influenced by the American people and by Voices in Congress and other voices uh that uh there will continue to be a uh very strong commitment and a very strong relationship which I hope uh leads to uh an unrelenting uh focus on supporting the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes and we'll go in the front thank you for doing this my name is Emanuel cyia I'm uh from Swedish Business Media I have a question about 10:00 the bipartisan infrastructure law uh half of about half of the funds have been announced um and there's a lot I think it's like 600 billion left of it how do you future proof it so that the incoming president can't stop it through executive action or any other ways well we have uh worked to move as much funding as we responsibly can and we were doing that before the election uh and of course we're doing it with uh a great deal of energy and urgency since the election to uh because of the way the funding is structured even funding that is considered part of fiscal year 2025 for example in some cases it was uh appropriate and uh allowed uh to announce that earlier because it was Advance appropriated uh so whenever we saw an opportunity to begin the process early we took it um because of the urgency of getting these things done it's not just driven by a political calendar it's the awareness that each year that a project waits to be funded 11:02 it grows more expensive and uh the cost of not having it grow um I would also say that for the the projects that have been uh announced but uh are not yet complete we have completed and will continue working to complete uh Grant agreements that contractually commit uh the the federal government to uh deliver on its promises with the funding um and there are many structures that allow construction to proed sometimes even before some of those processes are complete last thing I'll say is that I think that I would like to think that um improving our infrastructure is one of the least partisan remaining dimensions of us domestic policy I would add that if anything the benefits of much of what we have done as an Administration have skewed toward conservative areas in red States obviously not as a result of any political favoritism but because the funding went where the need was and uh 12:02 in whatever capacity I'm in in the future I'll do my part to remind everyone that these projects were chosen because they're good projects not because of ideological considerations great thanks uh we'll go to the second thank you Sally Patterson from feature storing news thank you so much for doing this you mentioned record numbers of passengers on flights in particular and how that has seen a real bounce back after covid-19 that is of course something to Grapple with when it comes to the environment and environmental sustainability what sorts of uh measures are in place at the moment and are you concerned when the next Administration takes over that some of those measures might be really thrown out the window one thing that we've uh uh found as really a keystone in many of our International relationships is the development of sustainable Aviation fuels uh we've had it particularly fruitful partnership with the UK on this uh it's been a frequent topic in the G7 I and uh uh TF and just about every other multi multilateral uh for that we 13:03 participate in uh that is an opportunity not only for sustainability but for economic growth uh certainly uh in the United States and I think it's something that deserves to be pursued we have a lot of work to do though to to meet our marks in terms of expanding the availability of sa uh this is another example of something that while uh climate action may not be greeted with as much enthusiasm by a future Administration the constituency for the economic opportunities or the jobs that it's creating including in the industrial Midwest should I hope provide a compelling reason uh not to allow politics to pollute what is a very important uh um effort of course we also need to make sure that there are alternatives and uh to to each form of transportation and uh in the US we see a lot of markets a lot of regions where you have um very short flights or uncomfortably long drives these are excellent candidates for Rail and I think the delivery of High-Speed Rail on us soil which we expect to begin with 14:04 the Nevada project that we broke ground on earlier this year we'll pave the way for increased appetite in the US for that kind of uh development both to improve the reliability and frequency on the rail network we already have and to expand routes uh creating those kinds of Alternatives I think helps with uh uh the challenge of how to keep emissions under control we're clearly going to see even more demand in the future great thanks uh we'll come to the front hi ban Bu from Leo in France um I wanted to ask you just talked about trains and Amtrak announ record ridership are you confident that with the funding project that you funded there's going to be continuing growth in rail passengers in the US and why um what do you think it's future proofing from the next Administration that's not always so the the way i' speak to audiences about rail 15:00 is that we should expect in the US the same standard as uh citizens of any other developed country uh are accustomed to but we don't really have that and uh so long as that's true we've got a lot of Investments to make this is not about geographic preference it's not about ideology uh although certain things that we're committed to in our Administration like climate action are also at stake here uh candidly much of the investment we're making is necessary simply to sustain the level of rail service we've already got and that's part of what many of the Northeast Corridor projects underway are doing something like the portal North Bridge to replace a 100-year old swing Bridge with something that has no moving Parts is necessary just in order to maintain the kind of service that uh that that people have been accustomed to other things really do represent a novel Improvement including the frequ the added frequencies will be possible in York and Washington with the completion of some of those projects I do not believe that we are 16:00 close to a true high-speed rail network but I believe we will come um a big step change closer to it the first time that Americans uh experienced true High-Speed Rail on us soil which should be uh the result of the Nevada to Southern California project uh my goal is that the same conversations Americans have with their friends and family when returning from abroad and experiencing the tve or the shin consen and saying why can't we have that here becomes an experience people have just when they get back from Las Vegas and say why can't we have that here in the Midwest or Texas or wherever they live and I believe we've made a material steps toward that but to continue the progress will clearly require more funding okay we're going to go to in the third row yep let's get around the world a little bit thank you so much for this opportunity my name is Moo from Tokyo broadcasting system at Japanese tvision Network I had a um great opportunity to 17:01 cover you back in 2020 your campaign Trail and we went to Indiana and um this is kind of change of pace um as a younger generation of democrat how are you taking in the um presidential election results this year as you um step away from this role how do you see yourself involved in politics in the future uh well me well first let me take care to respect us campaign rules that prevent me from speaking too much about partisan politics while I'm in a federal capacity but having said that um as a policy matter I believe that the work that we have done especially around things like infrastructure and job creation uh will continue to bear fruit in the years to come but the reality of the work that we do is that so many of the things we launched in the first half of this decade will bear their greatest fruit in the second half of this decade uh it's certainly the nature of large complex infrastructure projects uh but 18:06 other things too like the cap on outof pocket expenses for uh uh for Medicare will kick in soon which means there may not have been time to reap political credit for them but they were still the right thing to do I was back in Northern Indiana where I grew up and served a couple of weeks ago uh and the level of economic growth happening there is astonishing specifically in areas where they told us when I was growing up we were done uh auto manufacturing now there's A3 billion doll plant going up by the way a joint venture with Korean Partners uh that GM is putting up that represents by a multiple a greater investment in the Auto industry than uh anything probably since the Kennedy administration in the town where I grew up that's happening because of the Biden Harris Administration and our work um well one thing I've seen often is the 19:02 political trajectory of a good policy takes a long time I first ran for office in 2010 um any of us running for office with a d next to our name were demolished politically because of how Americans felt about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare today that legislation is so popular that even uh Republican members of Congress and others who attempted to to destroy it claim to have been protecting it all along to me that shows how in 8 years which is both a short time and a long time depending how you think about it um the political rewards attached to a good policy change as for me um I know I can speak with more clarity on what I care about than what I'll be doing professionally after January 20th uh I can tell you that for the next 38 days we have a lot of work to do to continue moving funding toward uh uh projects that are deserving you can expect millions of dollars more in announcements before we leave and to complete policies that that we've been working on um but what I care about is 20:07 questions like the recovery and Renaissance of places in America in the industrial Midwest where I grew up I care about the use of technology to make people better off and I care about structural questions that will determine whether our democracy grows more representative or less in my lifetime and I will find ways to work on that whether it's in office or otherwise um after spending uh uh a good amount of time with uh my spouse and my kids our dog and a long list of chores that has been prepared for me by my husband great um we'll come on the end here hi uh sh from s the ches correspondent here I got question so what lessons have you learned as Secretary of Transportation uh in terms of 21:06 uh that that could inform the future Transportation policy and secondly uh what do you see about your legacy as the Secretary of Transportation do you have concerns that incoming Administration would flip flop what you have done well uh um to answer the first question an experience like this is uh uh everyday an education and uh much of what we've learned has had to do with the complexity of major infrastructure projects but also the remarkable political alliances that can be formed around getting it done no one believed when we arrived that President Biden could actually achieve what he set out to do in terms of a bipartisan agreement uh on a major infrastructure package uh we were told you couldn't do anything on a bipartisan basis in the polarized Washington of 2021 and yet many 22:04 Republicans crossed the aisle to work with President Biden work with Democrats work with me on getting this legislation through and now places uh red blue and purple are benefiting from the 66,000 projects that it's funding and we're still going um another thing I learned is the importance of information both to empower uh consumers for example we empowered consumers with better information about how to hold their Airlines accountable for the way they were treated as passengers or the importance of information for people who are suffering from crisis uh whether it was the derailment in East Palestine Ohio or the impacts of hurricane holen where many people were hared Twice first by the original incident and then by by uh false information that was being presented to them uh that harmed them and so I think any agency needs to think in new ways about its respons abilities in the information space as far as a legacy when I think about the things that we are proudest of uh a historic 23:06 infrastructure package in Greater proportions than anything we've done in 70 years protections for Aviation passengers and railroad workers and many others benefiting from our policies and the most important thing that gets very little attention which is the reversal in the rise of roadway deaths in this country that has now been taking place for nine consecutive ERS each of those is an area where I would like to believe that no matter your ideology you can see the benefits of that and uh I think that helps to explain why transportation is one of the less ideological places in the US domestic policy landscape and that's something I want to continue working on to help build alliances around getting good things done thanks very much for speaking to us today my name is manik MAA I'm a 24:05 syndicated journalist my question relates to the Baltimore Bridge how much progress has been made and what what is your what is the federal government's cost sharing in reconstruction of that bridge secondly could you could you uh envisage uh the the safety of ships uh flying through the Red Sea in view of the changes that have occurred in Syria recently uh so with regard to Baltimore um the speed of the work to clear the channel uh and get the port back open was astonishing and uh it was uh I remember maybe on the second day of the crisis sitting in the Oval Office with President Biden next to Admiral goer from the Coast Guard uh as both of us were deferring to the Army Corps of Engineers on what was possible and the 25:02 president as if in a movie picked up the phone and said get me General stellman from the Army Corps of Engineers and him joining by phone in discussion about what was possible and hearing the general say that they could clear the channel in a matter of weeks and wondering given the dimensions of the wreckage that I had seen how that could be done it was done with more than 50 different agencies State local and federal cooperating but the next project of course is restoring the bridge it will happen the original Bridge took 5 years to build I believe we can beat that but it's going to take uh continued work to tear down every obstacle that could get in the way uh some of those obstacles are administrative but the biggest is funding uh the president has committed to the principle that 100% of the funding should be Federal with a very important um Nuance I should mention which is that uh taxpayers should not be responsible for anything that can be recovered from private actors there's already been an insurance payment there may be other judgments to hold private actors accountable but in terms of 26:03 taxpayer funding the president's made a commitment that would be 100% that is not the first time that we've done that in response to a disaster but it would require legislation from Congress the other thing we need Congress to do is to replenish our emergency relief fund there are billions of dollars in unmet unmet need and less than $200 million remaining in that account for our department to work with so far we have not had to turn anybody away because we uh provide the the funding as the expenses uh acre both for a disaster like this and for a disaster that may have happened three years or five years ago that they're still recovering from but we're not that far away from reaching the bottom of the tank and we need Congress to help um as for the Red Sea I I will speak more with hope than with expertise uh but certainly um there would be an enormous benefit especially when you consider the constraints on shipping capacity that have been created that make spot rates in particular much more sensitive to any disruption because of 27:03 the added uh capacity that's needed uh as a consequence of ships taking longer routes to avoid the Red Sea um in a way that growing the fleet simply can't keep up with uh so anything that contributes to stability in the region is certainly going to help with shipping prices and even as part of the ongoing project of achieving disinflation in the United States great we have time for like one maybe two questions yeah no sir you're you're you're doing great um we'll come in the middle here hi my name is mar sherifi I cover the US news for Dutch newspaper folks CR um for the past few years I've been traveling across the country talking to voters also about your infrastructure bill but it seemed like a lot of people weren't really aware of your plans and how it would change their lives looking back do you think you could have the admin ation could have done a better job at selling the success of this because 28:02 you've been talking about how many big changes you've made and how it it will change people's lives but then you lost the elections so how do you how do you see that one of the challenges we faced is that uh when something is unambiguously and uncontroversially good it gets way less coverage and so we did everything we could to draw attention to good things happening uh including me visiting the President visiting uh but some of the projects that got most coverage were the ones where a Republican representative who was against the funding tried to take credit for the project probably because there was a little more controversy to put some tension on the string and we got more attention on on the project um but it Remains the case that often good news is no news and so we have to continue connecting the dots between good outcomes whether it's a new bridge a repaired airport or the uh extraordinary job creation happening in places like where I grew up uh and I think we're dealing both with that fact that good news is no news and with the longer term nature of infrastructure 29:04 work um I think in the long term the the big deal of President Biden will rank alongside the New Deal of President Roosevelt in its impact and its benefit to the American people uh but the long term doesn't always help you in an election okay we have we'll go to Boris and I am Boris Hammon from suong in Germany Mr P I guess I just wonder how you feel at the end of this very remarkable year let's put it this way there was a presidential candidate dropping out the race there was a other presidential candidate with a very enthusiastic summer who then lost in s swing States there's a convicted F coming back to the White House so how is America doing at the moment well it's complicated I think that's the best answer I can give it's a complic ated time for our country um we have not just in this year but in the 30:04 last four or five years been through so much um I think that if you had asked me five or six years ago for example how long it would take our country to recover psychologically and societally from a pandemic killing a million Americans and shutting down our society for some period of time my response would not have been less than 5 years to get back to normal and I don't think we are um psychologically uh but I could also say that the proportions of what we've been able to achieve are head spinning when I think about what it means that we have renewed industrial strategy in the United States in a way not seen in my lifetime and done everything we've done on infrastructure um and many other accomplishments I think that trying to size them up is from here from this moment is like being close enough to the Empire of State Building to touch it 31:01 uh an experience I was thinking about because my father brought me to do exactly that when I was a child first time I went to New York City and when you're close enough to touch it you can't actually really see it very well you can't even make up it make out its shape and I think we're that way both in terms of the challenges we faced and the accomplishments that have happened uh in these last four years um the moment we're in is I think socially and politically precarious for our country um but in certain ways not unprecedented um if you just think about the upheaval that we've gone through obviously nothing quite like this moment but um we have a way of finding uh a pass forward which in my view will largely come from local leadership and from outside of Washington in the next couple of years uh and I think ultimately can get to a good place thank you so much secretary Budaj thank you so much for being here thank you all uh this transcript will be on our website later today thank you thanks

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