Transcript: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on “Face the Nation,” July 2, 2023

The following is a transcript of an interview with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that aired on “Face the Nation” on July 2, 2023.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin today with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who joins us from Traverse City, Michigan. Good morning to you, Mr. Secretary. Back in January, you also had a massive grounding of flights. Why does it seem so chaotic?

U.S. SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, if you look at the overall picture, we’ve seen a lot of improvements, but we had a hard few days with severe weather at the beginning of the week, and that definitely put enormous pressure on the system. Now the good news is, on Friday, we saw according to TSA, a record number of airline passengers, probably the most ever in America, and we saw those cancellation rates stay low. Right now we’re below 2%. But they really shot up at the first part of the week, largely because of severe weather hitting some of our key hubs. And it was really the first time this year that we’d had an episode like that in those busy summer, weekends and- and months. So this is where I think the work that we’ve done to enhance passenger rights to dramatically improve what passengers can expect from airlines, compared to even one year ago is paying off. But clearly there remains more work to be done. I think most passengers understand that no one can control the weather, but anything that’s under the control of the airlines and anything that we can do on the FAA side, we need to continue pushing to make sure that there’s the smoothest possible experience for air passengers everywhere. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and to that point, private industry seems to be pointing back to your office. Jetblue’s president said she was blaming the FAA. United’s CEO was very clear, saying the FAA failed us. The DOT’s Inspector General- General said last month, the FAA has no real plan in place to fix the problem of inadequate air traffic control staffing in Miami, New York, key hubs. So how are you addressing that particular issue?

SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG:  

Well, first of all, let me be very clear, that even according to the industry’s own data, air traffic control staffing issues account for less than 10% of the delay minutes in the system, but, I would rather that number be zero. So even though this isn’t the number one cause or even the number two cause of flight disruptions, it is something that is very important to tackle, and we’re doing exactly that. We’re hiring 1500 new air traffic controllers this year. Our plan is to hire another 1800 traffic controllers next year. We’re also working on staffing models that can better address the needs on the ground, and cooperating where possible and where appropriate with airlines on things that can make better use of the same national airspace. Remember, we have the most complex national airspace in the world. But there are things we can do to manage it more efficiently. FAA is using new technology, for example, to open up routes that are more direct using GPS, which means less flight time, and ultimately can contribute to less congestion. In the Florida airspace, we actually have enough commercial space launches taking place now that that can be a factor, is that airspace gets closed down, especially on those busy travel days. So we’ve been engaging the space industry to try to keep those launch windows clear of when there is the most traffic. And when we have severe weather situations, like we had a few days ago, have set up a very tight operational cadence working tightly and closely with airline operational managers to route aircraft in a way that always puts safety first, but also makes the most of the opportunities we have. So whether we’re talking about day to day ops and tactics, or whether we’re talking about the bigger picture of staffing air traffic control for the future, we’re moving very aggressively on that. And now’s the time for these conversations, because the FAA reauthorization bill, which will cover the next five years, is moving through the Senate as we speak. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: 

And we’re still waiting on a new permanent head of the FAA. I- I want to ask you about the bipartisan infrastructure bill. You were very prominent in promoting the impact on the country for the better. But there’s new data out there showing that while taxpayers are pouring in billions of dollars to upgrade infrastructure, there is some reporting from First Street Foundation that recently came out showing the government is substantially underestimating the risk of severe rain in some of the city’s largest- some of the largest cities in the country. So do you fear that some of these projects are being built on flawed data and flawed numbers?

SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG: 

You know, part of what we’ve been working to do is make our infrastructure more resilient for the future. You know, the- the hard reality doesn’t care about political debates. And if you have what used to be a 500 year flood happening every- every other year, and you got a road that gets washed out and you put it back and it gets washed out again. That doesn’t make any sense. It’s one of the reasons why we have for the first time ever in this infrastructure bill, billions of dollars going specifically to resilience projects, but also, we’re building resilience in mind in our traditional infrastructure projects—

(CROSSTALK)

MARGARET BRENNAN: — But you’re confident in those suggestions and numbers? 

SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG:  

What I’m confident in is that we are going to build for a future where these kinds of severe weather impacts are clearly going to be more serious and more frequent than the past. I was in Jackson, Kentucky the other day, this is in Appalachia, Eastern Kentucky is a community that was devastated recently by floods. And it wasn’t the first time that had happened to them. So what we’re doing as we improve Route 15 there, is not only widening and improving the highway that goes through that community. But while we’re at it, improving the dam infrastructure that is connected and beneath that highway to protect that community from flooding. So whether we’re talking about what in the grand scheme of things might be considered small projects, but mean everything to these rural communities. Or some of the most high profile projects like redoing the Hudson River tunnels that were damaged in part by Superstorm Sandy. And again, we know there’s going to be more where that came from. This is exactly why we’re so focused on moving with such urgency on these infrastructure projects around the country.

MARGARET BRENNAN: – 

I know you were outspoken on Friday with a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Colorado website designer. You called it discrimination. Justice Gorsuch said this was a First Amendment issue where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. What do you make of the argument that Colorado was labeling free speech as discrimination in order to censor it?

SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG: 

I think what’s really revealing is that there’s no evidence that this web designer was ever even approached by a same-sex couple looking for services to support their wedding. So we’re seeing more and more of these cases in these circumstances that are designed to get people spun up and designed to chip away at rights. And I think the bigger picture here, when you look at the Supreme Court taking away a woman’s right to choose. You look at Friday’s decision diminishing the equality of same sex couples. You look at a number of the decisions that have been made, they pose a question that is even deeper than these big cases. And the question is this, did we just live to see the high watermark of freedoms and rights in this country before they were gradually taken away. Because up until now, not uniformly, but overall, each generation was able to say that it enjoyed greater inclusion, greater equality, and more rights and freedoms than the generation before. And those decisions have added up and affected so many people, including me, of course, as I’m getting ready to go back to my husband and our twins for the rest of this morning, thinking about the fact that the existence of our family is is only a reality because of a one vote margin on the Supreme Court a few years ago. These are the kinds of things that are at stake. And we have a Supreme Court that is very much out of step with how most Americans view these issues. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: 

But you know that conservatives are just framing this in a fundamentally different manner. Senator Ted Cruz described the Colorado law that would compel services be provided, despite personal beliefs, and put it this way, should a Muslim artists be compelled by the government to draw the image of Muhammad? Should Jewish artists be forced to create art that is anti-semitic? Do you see merit in those comparisons that have- have to do specifically with free speech and freedom of religion?

SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG:  

Yeah, that’s really not a comparison that is relevant to this case. But more importantly, I think it’s really telling that you have to think of these far-fetched hypotheticals in order to justify decisions that are actually going to have much worse impacts in the real world. And I think this, again, goes back to the broader agenda of the culture wars that are being fired up. Again, there’s no evidence that this business ever even did wedding websites until they got interested in this political controversy, and no evidence that they were ever approached by a same sex couple. There’s even some indications they may have set up this business just for the purpose of being able to turn away same sex couples to make a political point. And, you know, it’s one thing to do that in the political sphere, it’s another to deny equal service to people who are seeking to be treated equally. And, you know, those hypotheticals are coming at the cost of the things that are actually happening in the real world, just like the legislators -legislatures around the country, that could be working on the problems. People are beating down on their doors to get solutions to: problems of affordability, problems of infrastructure that we’re working so hard on in this administration, problems like the result of Congressional Republicans blocking a $35 a month cap on insulin for all Americans, the kinds of problems that most people have in their day. You know, most people aren’t beating down the doors of any office of a court or legislator, saying that the biggest problem in their life today had to do with who was using which bathroom. Matter of fact, the only people who do have that as a major issue in their life are this the transgender people and students are getting picked on so much by these courts and by these legislatures because they would rather be dealing with that than the actual things that most people are getting called on to deal with in public service where there’s just I think a profound desire to turn away from that on the part of many elected officials who don’t want to be explaining why they’re against $35 Insulin, don’t want to be explaining why they voted no on the infrastructure bill, don’t want to be explaining even on an issue like marriage, which is settled for most Americans. Why even though 70% of Americans think that same sex marriage is valid and ought to be treated with equal respect and dignity under the law, yet the majority of House and Senate Republicans voted no on those marriages being allowed to continue? So this is the world that we’re in and you’ll continue to see these wild hypotheticals being thrown up as a way to keep our focus on these culture wars when we could be coming together to solve problems. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your time this morning.