WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pete Buttigieg, a former mayor who challenged Joe Biden for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, won U. S. Senate Commerce Committee approval on Wednesday, 21-3, to head the U.S. Transportation Department.
The full Senate will cast a final vote as early as this week on Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who will oversee aviation, highways, vehicles, pipelines and transit as Biden’s secretary of transportation.
Biden, who entered the White House a week ago, has proposed $20 billion in additional government assistance to help U. S. transit systems struggling with a massive falloff in ridership amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Congress has allocated $39 billion in emergency funding for transit systems, including $14 billion approved last month, and $65 billion in government loans and bailouts to U. S. passenger airlines. Lawmakers awarded $12 billion to airports and $2 billion to the Amtrak passenger train service.
Last week, New York City Council Speaker Co… (Read more)
Comments are closed.