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Duffy Testifies Before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the FY2026 Budget, Jul. 16, 2025

July 16, 2025 · Associated Press · 2:46:10

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What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy testified before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on July 16, 2025, at the hearing titled “Oversight of the Department of Transportation’s Policies and Programs and Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request” — his first appearance before the committee, according to the committee — in the Associated Press’ live carry of the hearing.

Duffy opened by recalling that on his first full day on the job the department faced “a sobering reminder of why the department’s top priority is and always must be safety”: the midair collision over the Potomac that killed 67 people. That, he said, is why building a brand-new air traffic control system sits at the top of the agenda. He thanked the committee for the $12.5 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill as “a down payment for this build,” and recapped the plan he unveiled in May for a three-to-four-year complete overhaul of the outdated system. On controllers, he said the department is 3,000 short, has streamlined academy hiring, and is offering retirement-eligible controllers a 20% upfront cash bonus to stay longer, with a hope of getting 2,500 new controllers out of the academy in 2026 to start certification, as he stated the figures. On Newark, he reported the runway was completed almost two weeks before schedule and that Verizon laid the new fiber line between the Philadelphia TRACON and New York in a month, with another month of testing — the new line up and running two months after the spring’s outages, as he described the timeline.

Why it matters

The July 2025 testimony is the department’s mid-year report to its authorizing committee: the air traffic control overhaul priced and scheduled on the record ($12.5 billion down payment, three-to-four-year build), the controller pipeline given a dated 2026 target, and the Newark recovery presented as the proof case for the department’s new CEO-engagement approach to its contractors.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the air traffic control commitments stated July 16, 2025 — the $12.5 billion One Big Beautiful Bill down payment, the three-to-four-year system overhaul, and 2,500 new controllers out of the academy in 2026, as stated by Secretary Duffy. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: Associated Press, “LIVE: Sean Duffy testifies before House panel on transportation budget” (live carry, embedded above); hearing title and first-appearance note per the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Remarks and figures as delivered by Secretary Duffy at the hearing.