Editorial: Arrivals and Departures

President-elect George Bush’s appointment of Norman Y. Mineta as his transportation secretary virtually insures that the Department of Transportation will be off and running quickly after the inauguration.

Mineta is no stranger to transportation and the issues facing trucking and the other modes, courtesy of his many years on Capitol Hill, including two as chairman of the House Public Works Committee.

He was a key player in the creation of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991.

Ironically, he stepped down after the Republicans took control of the House in 1995, and the chairmanship of the committee went over to Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.)

Just days after Bush unveiled Mineta, a California Democrat, as his transport chief, Shuster surprised everyone by announcing that he would resign at the end of this month, for health reasons, just weeks after winning re-election to a 15th term and one day after he was sworn in again.

Shuster was forced by the Republican leadership’s own term limits on chairmanships to give up the gavel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this year. He was scheduled to head the panel’s Surface Transportation Subcommittee.

Shuster will be long remembered by the trucking industry for his support, and especially his drive to protect the money in the Highway Trust Fund from being diverted to other uses.

He was also a key player in the creation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which elevated regulation of the industry to a higher level in the government, and in the move to bottle up the Department of Transportation’s ill-conceived plan to revise the hours-of-service standards for truck and bus drivers last year.

Trucking will miss Bud Shuster.

Also last week, American Trucking Associations welcomed Consolidated Freightways back into the fold.

F, the nation’s seventh-largest trucking company by revenue, left ATA in 1998 as part of a cost-cutting move, and was the largest non-member among the nation’s truckers.

The move by CF and its chief executive, Patrick Blake, was a resounding show of support for the changes ATA has undergone over the past two years.

“This is a vote of confidence that ATA is the place to be,” ATA President Walter B. McCormick Jr. said. “This is a terrific way to begin the new year.”