Going Nowhere Faster - Project 2025’s Department of Transportation
Kudos to ProPublica for reporting on the existence of 23 training videos in circulation for Project 2025. The 14 hours of content were designed to train an army of political appointees who could fight the so-called deep state on behalf of a future Trump administration.
Reports of Project 2025’s demise are as false as the Christian Nationalist/authoritarian ‘facts’ used to justify its extreme measures.
The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.
In one video, Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of climate change and says the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.”
“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says.
Also to be eradicated are Biden administration actions creating gender adviser positions throughout the federal government. No longer will the bureaucracy concern itself with advancing equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity. Also gone will be the largely imaginary content of Critical Race Theory supposedly being taught in the nation’s public education systems.
Stripped of its conservative patina, the videos provide further evidence that the real goal is a government enabling corporate grift and keeping the world safe for white straight males.
And now, on to Chapter 19 of Heritage Foundation’s manifesto.
Department of Transportation. Author: Diana Furchtgott-Roth*
Deregulation and privatization are the watchwords for this imagined federal agency, plus a sprinkling of “family friendly” and “technology” descriptors.
The DOT is re-envisioned as a funding source for states, localities, and private enterprises to build, baby, build whatever the marketplace can support. Its role as a regulator and safety overseer is largely unnecessary in this context.
Enabling new technologies would be shifted to industries participating in Public-Private Projects as part of a means to collect revenues on the assets created. Tolls would become a major source of income. The DOT would perform advanced studies determining profitability, not public benefit, for such projects. Local politicians could then require larger upfront private contributions in return for escalating fees at a time when they are no longer in office.
Transportation grants to each of the 50 states are contemplated, meaning Arizona’s legislature could authorize new freeway construction for another route to a neighboring state. Whether or not that neighboring state decides to connect on its side of the border would be up to its legislature. (Think, for a moment, of all the bridges to nowhere that might be built.)
A big priority for this imagined future agency would be getting it out of the business of setting fuel economy standards, which the authors claim would decrease the cost of new vehicles to consumers. Riiight… Since American corporations have such a not-great record of passing on cost savings to consumers.
More importantly, the supremacy of the internal combustion car culture/economy would be preserved in such a scenario. The sections written about electric vehicles may not apply, now that Elon Musk and Trump are bros, so I’ll save those visions for another day.
Speaking of car supremacy, gone would be those pesky concepts of studying and restoring communities negatively impacted by freeway construction. If “those people” in New Orleans don’t like having their neighborhood ruined by a freeway, let them move to Arkansas.
The glories of deregulation need to be expanded when it comes to air travel. Burdensome regulations about hidden fees and refund policies need to go away to encourage competition. Although monopoly-inducing mergers have no track record when it comes to benefiting consumers in the long run, P2025 advocates for allowing such joinings in the name of increased efficiency.
An ongoing shortage of pilots in commercial aviation would be solved by lowering standards with less airborne flight hours and more simulator training.
The Federal Aviation Administration would be called upon to operate more like a business, with fees for services and less hands-on safety employees. No doubt these P2025 zoomies have been inspired by Boeing’s recent successes.
The use of the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit would end, since those services have yet to produce profits. And the use of any funds to preserve or encourage union participation would also fall by the wayside.
The current concept of “public transit” as “transit provided by a public municipality” to “transit provided for the public,” one way of offering private sector participation. “Micro Mobility” solutions, ridesharing, and possible future autonomous vehicles would be included in this vision.
An interesting juxtaposition in the P2025 chapter on Transportation is the recommendation that Maritime Administration functions be transferred to the Department of Homeland Safety, a federal agency that another set of authors suggested to be disbanded. No problem, though. In that case the Department of Defense would be called upon to pick up the slack.
(*) Diana Furchtgott-Roth Is the Heritage Foundation director of the Energy and Climate Center and was former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the US Department of Transportation. She has worked in senior roles in Republican administrations dating back to President Ronald Reagan.
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Tomorrow: Department of Veteran Affairs
Previously:
(Intro) Digging Deep into Project 2025 - (a multi-part Series)
Going Deep into Project 2025 - Partisan Priorities for Civil Servants
Project 2025: Christian Soldiers Marching Off to Land Wars
Homeland Security’s Authoritarian Role in Project 2025
What Can You Do For Trump Today? Project 2025’s Diplomats, Spies and Spokespersons
No Soup For You: Project 2025’s Foreign Aid Program
Project 2025’s National Nightmare for “The General Welfare”
Project 2025: Junk Food and Parents Rights
Make America Dirty Again: Project 2025 on Energy and the Environment
Project 2025: Some (Christian) People Are More Equal Than Others
Public Land for Sale, Cheap: Project 2025
Revenge Drives Project 2025 Justice Department
Don’t Let Trump Fool Ya: Project 2025 Lives
Department of Labor Gets Religion with Project 2025
A must read.