Trump picks Sean Duffy for US Transportation Secretary
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Mr Sean Duffy represented Wisconsin’s seventh district in Congress for eight years.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – US President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate former congressman Sean Duffy as the head of his Department of Transportation.
“Sean will use his experience and the relationships he has built over many years in Congress to maintain and rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, and fulfil our mission of ushering in the golden age of travel, focusing on safety, efficiency and innovation,” Trump said in a statement on Nov 18 on his Truth Social platform. “Importantly, he will greatly elevate the travel experience for all Americans!”
The Department of Transportation has served as a focal point for President Joe Biden’s efforts to rebuild American infrastructure, funnelling formula grants to state highway departments and fielding applications for new grant programmes to fund everything from urban transit improvements to inter-city rail lines.
Under Trump, the department will take a lead role in altering federal infrastructure investment to look more like what the incoming president and Republican congressional leaders seek.
That includes potentially fewer bicycle lanes, more highway widening, less federally supported mass transit – or none at all, if the policy planners from the Heritage Foundation get their way. Building new airports, a favourite talking point of Trump’s back when he was first president, is poised to gain new attention.
One critical decision will require a little finesse: what to do about electric cars.
Trump savaged the electric vehicle (EV) industry on the campaign trail
Critics in Congress have lambasted the administration for pouring so much funding from the infrastructure law into building out networks of EV chargers – and for the slow pace at which those facilities have been installed.
But Trump acquired a new patron along the way: Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, who has done more than any businessman to popularise EVs, and whose personal fortunes give him billions of reasons to dissuade the new administration from completely reversing course on these vehicles.
Mr Duffy represented Wisconsin’s seventh district in Congress for eight years, having gained fame for his appearance on reality television show The Real World: Boston in the late 1990s.
He currently is the co-host of The Bottom Line on Fox Business, as well as a contributor on Fox News, where he has been critical of current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Mr Duffy is the husband of fellow Real World alumnus-turned-Fox News-personality Rachel Campos-Duffy. He resigned from Congress, citing family needs, when the couple’s ninth child was born.
Mr Duffy joins Mr Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defence
