During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) spoke about President Trump's nominee for Deputy Transportation Secretary, Steven Bradbury.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I come to the floor this morning to speak in opposition to the nomination of Stephen
00:08Bradbury.
00:09He's nominated to be the Deputy Secretary of Transportation.
00:14When it comes to transportation safety, we don't measure success in dollars saved.
00:21We measure success in lives protected and tragedies prevented.
00:28Last week, I met with the parents of Sam Lilly, the first officer of the American
00:34Airlines plane that fatally collided with a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter at DCA Airport.
00:42Sam's father happens to be a commercial pilot now, and before that, he flew Blackhawk helicopters
00:48in the military.
00:50He expressed his concern about reports that the Blackhawks are regularly being operated
00:57in this busy airspace without the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, commonly
01:05known as ADSB, turned on.
01:11We know that the Blackhawk, in the January 29th collision, wasn't transmitting.
01:18This kind of technology would have allowed the CRJ and Sam Lilly the ability to see
01:27that traffic.
01:29We hope that we will find out later today, in the NTSB report that is listed, what we
01:37need to do to fix this problem.
01:42We know that during Mr. Bradbury's first tenure at DOT, he let the FAA create exemptions
01:49to permit military aircraft from operating without this key safety technology transmitting.
01:58And guess what?
01:59The military knew, and knew that they had been granted a loophole, but they said it
02:05would not be used all the time, only to find out later that the military said they were
02:11going to use the exemption 100 percent of the time.
02:16My heart goes out to the Lilly family, and to all the families of the victims of this
02:21tragic accident.
02:23It didn't need to happen.
02:27That is why last week I wrote Secretary Hegseth to ask about the Army's letter from 2023 stating
02:35that 100 percent of its helicopters fly in the D.C. area with this ADS-B technology not
02:47activated.
02:51We can't afford another light-touch approach at the Department of Transportation when it
02:58comes to safety.
03:00We cannot.
03:02It simply does not matter if you're saving dollars if you're not saving lives.
03:08Unfortunately, I believe the President's nominee to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of
03:13Transportation, Stephen Bradbury, has shown more interest in a light-touch approach that
03:19benefits industry than being a champion for safety.
03:25During his nomination hearing, I questioned Mr. Bradbury about his record as previous
03:31General Counsel for the Department of Transportation during the first Trump administration.
03:36In this capacity, Mr. Bradbury played a key role in orchestrating the rollback of multiple
03:43safety requirements under the guise of advancing a reform agenda.
03:50For example, under his watch, he prevented requirements for truck drivers.
03:58There was a fatigue prevention requirement for truck drivers, which he loosened.
04:03The vehicle safety recall investigation reached an all-time low.
04:07And meanwhile, road fatalities increased.
04:10Under his watch, there were a number of rail safety requirements that were also waived.
04:16The Department of Transportation withdrew its two-person crew rule.
04:20This was a rule that people had recommended after derailments in the United States and
04:26Canada, including a runaway oil train in Quebec in 2013 that derailed and killed 47
04:33people.
04:34And during this same time period, the mainline derailment rate increased, all during Mr.
04:40Bradbury's tenure.
04:43Perhaps though the most troubling of all is Mr. Bradbury's watch during the rulemaking
04:50on what is called a safety management system for aviation manufacturers like Boeing.
04:57Just nine days after the first 737 MAX crash in 2018, which resulted in 346 deaths, there
05:08was a rule that said, being proposed, that the safety management system should be a mandatory
05:18requirement.
05:19Don't tell an industry that has to manufacture planes, it's okay, you can voluntarily comply
05:24with some of these rules.
05:26No, no, we need requirements that manufacturers must meet.
05:31As my colleagues on the Commerce Committee know, a safety management system rule for
05:37aviation manufacturers would have instituted a comprehensive process for analyzing, predicting,
05:44and ultimately mitigating risk.
05:47The safety management system is considered the gold standard now.
05:52Around the world, if you want to have safety, you have a safety management system.
05:58It's a more robust process.
06:00And I question how Mr. Bradbury at DOT, after the first Indonesian 737 MAX crash, didn't
06:11see or understand the need for critical information and analysis that a safety management system
06:17would have put in place, particularly because the FAA continued to let the MAX plane fly.
06:25And part of the process in question is whether they considered the critical analysis that
06:31Boeing had done to allow the plane to fly and what the FAA's role was.
06:38So following the tragedies of both 737 MAX crashes, the Commerce Committee, led by then
06:43Chairman Wicker, launched an investigation into the crashes to find solutions and prevent
06:48the disaster from happening again.
06:50But what did Mr. Bradbury do?
06:53Did he work with the committee to improve safety for the flying public?
06:57No.
06:58No, he did not.
07:00He basically thwarted Senator Wicker and the committee's efforts to get the information
07:06about what the FAA had done.
07:12To make this clear here today, our colleagues need to hold the FAA accountable.
07:19If you don't hold the FAA accountable as the oversight body, that chance the FAA is going
07:27to continue to do its job as aggressively as it needs to.
07:33So Senator Wicker's office said, quote, Mr. Bradbury intentionally withheld relevant information
07:40requested by the committee, end quote.
07:44He made our investigation very hard.
07:48In fact, Senator Wicker later said, quote, he deliberately attempted to keep us in the
07:53dark and by that I mean our investigations, our staff, our committee, and me, end quote.
08:01Now I have great respect for my colleague Senator Wicker.
08:07But the Bradbury's findings and stymieing us as a committee to do our oversight job
08:15gives me serious questions about his level of transparency.
08:22The families of the 737 MAX crashes wrote to Chairman Cruz last month to express their
08:27concerns about Mr. Bradbury's role in obstructing the committee's investigation into the crashes
08:32that took their loved ones' lives.
08:35They also voiced concern about Mr. Bradbury's role that led to the delays in holding Boeing
08:41accountable to implementing a true mandatory safety management system.
08:49Now during his hearing, Mr. Bradbury suggested that the rule that was proposed by the previous
08:56Obama administration that made it mandatory for manufacturers to have a safety management
09:02system was held up because some small businesses didn't want to meet that requirement.
09:11Do we not believe that businesses are going to object to some rules?
09:16They do.
09:17They do all the time.
09:19But that doesn't mean scrapping the rule altogether, which is exactly what happened as far as the
09:28mandatory requirement.
09:31Well, lucky for the consumer, our committee in the aftermath of these two crashes got
09:41legislation passed that said, yes, you have to have a mandatory safety management system
09:49and you have to FAA put that rule out.
09:53Now Mr. Bradbury was still serving as general counsel and acting deputy secretary of the
09:59department.
10:01You would have thought now that he's gotten a directive by Congress to put out this rule,
10:06he would have said, hey, we have one.
10:07We've been debating it for a while, but now we've had two crashes.
10:11It's really clear that the safety culture needs to be upgraded.
10:15Everybody agrees, all experts.
10:17This is the great system.
10:18Let's implement it.
10:20But he didn't.
10:23He didn't move forward even after Congress mandated it.
10:29And after Mr. Bradbury's confirmation hearing in front of the Commerce Committee last month,
10:33the families of the 737 MAX crashes released a statement saying his testimony purporting
10:37to prioritize aviation safety, quote, shows a complete disregard for the 84 people who
10:45died in plane crashes in the United States in the last month, end quote.
10:58Mr. Bradbury's troubling record doesn't stop just with transportation.
11:04During his time at the Department of Justice, during the Bush administration, Mr. Bradbury
11:09authored what we now know as the widely known torture memos, justifying the use of waterboarding
11:19and other torture techniques.
11:22The Department of Justice, in the Office of Professional Responsibility, reviewed these
11:28memos and raised doubts about them, quote, saying the objectivity and reasonableness,
11:36end quote, of these legal analysis.
11:39DOJ also found evidence that Mr. Bradbury's legal analysis, quote, were written with the
11:48goal of allowing the ongoing CIA program to continue.
11:57So Mr. Bradbury then, at the Department of Justice, was writing rules that fit the outcome
12:05that he wanted instead of looking objectively at what the American people needed.
12:13These legal opinions were contrary to what this nation stands for.
12:17Later, the Senate refused to confirm Mr. Bradbury as assistant attorney general during the Bush
12:23administration, and Congress passed the McCain-Feinstein Amendment to the 2016 NDAA codifying the illegality
12:34of those torture methods, those very torture methods that Mr. Bradbury said were okay.
12:44We passed a law to basically change what this guy's legal opinion was, because it was so bad.
12:54So now, when the Senate is asked to provide advice and consent on Mr. Bradbury's nomination
13:01to be general counsel of the Transportation Department, I think you should look back at
13:06what happened then.
13:10Two of our Republican colleagues voted against his nomination because of the torture memos.
13:19They rightly concluded that he was not right to fit in the Department of Justice role.
13:25I'm saying today, what do you need to know?
13:29He didn't fight for strong safety rules at the Department of Transportation before.
13:34He's not going to fight for them now.
13:37It's really clear that our aviation safety system needs strong leadership at the FAA.
13:45Not someone who's going to write the rule to fit business, but write the rule to fit safety.
13:53As if these issues weren't concerning enough, there is another issue.
14:00During his confirmation hearing, I asked Mr. Bradbury, what about the conflicts of interest
14:07that appear to be mounting between Elon Musk and the FAA?
14:14You know, I thought a smart lawyer, because your job is to be general counsel, could really
14:19give guidance to the Secretary of Transportation, give guidance to the FAA administrator, the
14:25acting one, and could say, these are the ways in which Elon Musk should not pass go, would
14:32be a conflict of interest, would be a problem at the FAA, given that there are already issues
14:39that are really clearly in front of us.
14:42So I said, tell us, tell us, where do you think those conflict of interests exist?
14:49Of course, at the hearing, he kind of demurred, and I said, you know what, Mr. Bradbury, you
14:54can give me for the record, where exactly do you think there's a conflict of interest?
15:02But he didn't just evade my answers.
15:05He basically said that he thought that it was an excellent idea to have Elon Musk and
15:13SpaceX making changes to the FAA air traffic control system.
15:21In fact, he said that he didn't, quote, see the potential for a conflict, end quote, with
15:29the SpaceX employees having access to the FAA.
15:36Of course, we know now that three SpaceX engineers were recently hired as special government
15:42employees at the FAA, and were immediately granted conflict of interest waivers by the
15:50Trump administration, so they could work on matters at the FAA.
15:57Why?
15:59Because they had, quote, direct and predictable effects upon the financial interests of SpaceX,
16:04end quote.
16:06So in other words, the Trump administration conceded that conflicts of interest do exist,
16:12and they're going to let them happen anyway, and they went to get a waiver.
16:21The conflicts of interest for Mr. Musk and SpaceX at the FAA is obvious.
16:30Let me just say, though, first, you can have all sorts of broadband solutions, including
16:39satellite solutions.
16:42But when you're talking about the air traffic controller system, that kind of system is
16:49inferior to fiber.
16:52Why?
16:53Because of speed, capacity, cost, weather, all sorts of issues.
17:01And when there's chaos, we need certainty and predictability.
17:08So we are seeing a conflict play out right before our eyes.
17:12According to a Bloomberg report, one of SpaceX engineers who was granted a conflict of interest
17:18waiver recently told the FAA that SpaceX planned to send 4,000 Starlink terminals to the agency.
17:26For what?
17:28We're still trying to find out.
17:33The FAA already entered into a $2 billion contract with Verizon in 2023 to upgrade its
17:39telecommunications network.
17:42But Mr. Musk's own tweet suggests he wants to cancel the FAA's contract with Verizon.
17:50He's saying that they are failing.
17:53He wants them to use his product instead.
17:57And yet Mr. Bradbury apparently doesn't even see the potential.
18:01He doesn't even see the potential for the conflict of interest.
18:07He doesn't stop with Starlink as a broadband supplier.
18:11Just last week, SpaceX Starship heavy lift rocket malfunctioned and broke apart over
18:17the Caribbean before it reached orbit.
18:20Dangerous debris fell from the sky.
18:22The FAA smartly halted flights in the area to ensure safety, and thankfully no one was
18:27injured.
18:29The FAA initiated an immediate investigation into SpaceX to determine what happened.
18:35The investigation presents another clear conflict of interest.
18:41As we know, Mr. Musk doesn't think FAA safety rules should apply to him.
18:48Last September, the FAA fined Mr. Musk and SpaceX for failing to comply with specific
18:54requirements in its launch license.
18:59Afterwards, after getting fined, Mr. Musk made a spectacle calling the firing, calling
19:06for the firing of the FAA administrator.
19:09That's right.
19:10The FAA fined him, and then he called for the FAA administrator.
19:15Oh, wait.
19:16Wait one second.
19:17The FAA administrator that passed this body 98 to 0 because everybody here thought he
19:26was going to do a great job.
19:29But Mr. Bradbury doesn't think Elon Musk has a conflict of interest, but Elon Musk can
19:36basically say to the President of the United States, fire the FAA administrator that we
19:42all said we thought would do a good job.
19:46Now we all know Mr. Whitaker wasn't going to stick around and put up without being backed
19:53up for the safety work that he was doing.
19:58And now we don't have a Senate-confirmed head of the FAA.
20:02Why?
20:03Because Mr. Whitaker didn't want to stay around if everybody was going to let Donald Trump
20:08do whatever the heck he wanted when it came to the FAA.
20:14All this because he got fined for violating safety rules.
20:20So I really don't understand what Mr. Bradbury doesn't understand that he can't write down
20:27on a piece of paper where real conflict of interest exists.
20:35We need new leadership in the Department of Transportation so that we can continue to
20:41stand up to safety issues.
20:44I do not believe Mr. Bradbury is that person.
20:49Mr. Bradbury sees bureaucratic hurdles when other people see safety safeguard.
20:56He sees red tape where we see life-saving protections.
21:01He sees the objective of having a light-touch FAA, and we see the objective of having safety
21:10be the primary purpose.
21:13Because you can't win at aviation if you don't win at aviation safety first.
21:18That's the people of the Pacific Northwest.
21:21The catastrophes of the MAX crashes not only lost lives, they cost billions of dollars.
21:29So not adhering to safety is hardly a winning economic solution.
21:36So Mr. Bradbury hasn't shown us the leadership on safety.
21:40He has not shown the fidelity of upholding the law, of even respecting Congress.
21:45He has not shown us the courage that it takes to stand up and make sure that safety is implemented.
21:53And the consequences of putting the wrong person in place are measured in human lives,
22:00not dollars.
22:02Human lives.
22:06The Boeing 737 MAX families know this.
22:10Today was the sixth anniversary of the Ethiopian Airlines crash that claimed 157 lives.
22:19Family members like Javier DeLuis and Nadia Milaron, who have now oriented their lives
22:26around making aviation safer.
22:30I so appreciate their advocacy.
22:34But the people at the FAA should be doing the same.
22:38I urge my colleagues to vote against the nomination of Stephen Bradbury.
22:43And I yield the floor.