Trump’s Team Evaluating DOT Candidates
This story appears in the Nov. 28 print edition of Transport Topics.
As he transitions into power, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped infrastructure privatization proponents and Washington lobbyists to help him assemble a transportation team that would be ready to implement his big transformation of the country’s congested roads and rickety bridges.
Transportation observers say they expect either a member of the Trump transition team or another Trump advocate to be tapped for the top job at the Department of Transportation.
The transition team selected Shirley Ybarra, a privatization proponent and former Virginia secretary of transportation, to help select the next federal transportation secretary.
Ybarra pushed the building of toll roads during her stint as secretary from 1998 to 2002 under Gov. Jim Gilmore, and she advocated for minimizing the role of government in infrastructure funding by tapping investors to assist with financing the projects.
Working alongside Ybarra is Martin Whitmer, a former deputy chief of staff at the Transportation Department during George W. Bush’s administration. In that capacity, he helped oversee a staff of about 60,000 and a departmental budget of $54 billion. He would advise the secretary on trucking, highway, transit and trade matters. After leaving DOT, Whitmer went on to lobby on Capitol Hill for clients, such as the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and Penske Truck Leasing Co.
Ado Machida, a lobbyist and a former domestic policy aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, also has been assisting with the transition.
American Trucking Associations officials have been meeting with Trump transition officials since September, they said.
Last week, the transportation transition staff added Nancy Butler, most recently with engineering consultant AECOM.
Mark Rosenker, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, has been mentioned in news outlets as a contender for the secretary post. Also throwing his name into the mix is outgoing Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who told Capitol Hill reporters soon after he lost his re-election bid Nov. 8 that he would accept the chief transportation role in Trump’s cabinet.
Mica cited his chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as one of his qualifications. His office indicated that Mica would speak further about his interest during the lame-duck session of Congress.
Despite the growing buzz over who will take over at DOT in a Trump administration, the transition staff did not respond to requests for comment.
Jeff Davis, senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, who closely tracks such transitions, noted that a clear favorite for department secretary has yet to emerge.
“In the last few administrations, the top DOT job was much sought after and easy to fill, which meant that it was held out until the very end of the process,” Davis said.
It remains too early to tell who would fill the agency posts, such as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The names mentioned for DOT jobs point toward greater use of public-private partnerships to assist states and municipalities in financing large-scale infrastructure during Trump’s administration. The president-elect has pledged to work for $1 trillion in infrastructure investment with legislation proposed during his first 100 days in office to provide $137 billion in tax credits to companies looking to build and manage highways and bridges.
