Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s voting record has come back to haunt him after Friday’s air travel meltdown.
Duffy, 55, demanded $50 billion from Congress to upgrade the “incredibly old” air traffic control system after a nationwide ground stop lasted four hours—money he says is desperately needed, even though he previously voted against more funding for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy renewed his call for more FAA funding after Friday’s air travel meltdown.
The FAA abruptly grounded all flights due to “extraordinary circumstances” and “reasons of safety.” After the ground stop was lifted, Duffy deflected blame for the disaster in a press conference and demanded that Congress provide billions more in funding to his agency.
“President Trump has asked for the money,” he said. “He’s asked the Congress on a bipartisan approach to say, ‘Give us the resources to build a state-of-the-art air traffic control system. Let’s not do a patchwork fix to a system that’s critical for every single family.’”
“The president’s asked for $30 billion. I want $50 billion,” he continued. “Let’s invest so we never have to come at 8:30 at night and have a press conference on why air travel was shut down.”
Duffy and President Donald Trump have long been asking Congress for more money for aviation upgrades.
But social media users quickly pointed out that Duffy once voted against a multi-faceted appropriations bill that would have given the FAA more than $10 billion in funding.
In 2019, when Duffy was a Wisconsin congressman and the government was in the throes of a long-running shutdown, he voted against the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
The measure passed the House but ultimately failed to break through the Senate and never became law. It would have provided more than $10.4 billion for the FAA, including funding for research and development, establishment of air navigation facilities, and air traffic organization activities.
Airports got thrown into chaos after a nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon.
The bill, introduced by Democrats, was opposed by House Republicans for several reasons, including concerns that President Donald Trump could veto it or that it would not be enough to fund air traffic control programs.
A spokesperson for Duffy previously told PolitiFact that he voted against the bill because it only represented a small funding increase for the FAA. He did, however, vote in favor of bills that reauthorized or continued FAA funding in 2012, 2014, and 2018.
On Friday, Duffy acknowledged that past administrations funded the FAA, but insisted that “barely anything was done” with the money.
Passengers across the country were left stranded at airports.
“Now, if you look to the past administrations going back 25 years, $15 billion dollars has been given to the FAA to fix this air traffic control system. And guess what? Barely anything was done,” he said.
On Saturday, Duffy blamed the nationwide ground stop on work being done to replace fiber wires with copper at a single remote facility. He also renewed his call for additional funding.
“For me, it gets to be frustrating where everyone says they want to do it and the president is pushing it, but we don’t get the resources,” he added. “I think this is the moment. If we don’t start to switch out our systems, how long are we going to wait, America and Congress? I think this is a sign for them to lean in.”
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