May 14 (UPI) — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Wednesday told House committee members about plans to reduce flights involving troubled Newark Liberty International Airport as he explained why his wife was put on a plane at another airport.
Duffy testified before members of the transportation subcommittee on appropriations about the agency’s 2026 fiscal year budget. The requested $26.7 billion is a 5.8% increase from the previous year.
Most of the hearing was devoted to the situation at the New Jersey airport amid a shortage of air traffic controllers and significant outages.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat from New Jersey, suggested that Duffy “diverted your wife from Newark airport to LaGuardia out of a sense of security.”
“That’s not true,” Duffy responded, then said, “It’s partially true.”
“With all the delays at Newark — my wife had to do an event and she was in the city of New York, and so I did — I moved her from Newark to LaGuardia not for safety but because I needed her flight to fly. She had to get there.”
Duffey said portions of a show last week on SiriusXM, hosted by conservative David Webb, were taken out of context.
“Now, someone had clipped some audio of that and made it seem like I was talking about safety,” he said.
Trump’s Transportation Secretary after saying that Newark Airport was safe to fly from: “My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow. I switched her flight to LaGuardia”
[image or embed]— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) May 12, 2025 at 3:34 PM
“I accept that. Thank you,” Coleman responded.
Since late April, Newark has had three significant tech outages at the Philadelphia center where air traffic is monitored for the New Jersey airport.
The New York Times reported on Monday that just three air traffic controllers were monitoring traffic at Newark during a shift that is supposed to have 14.
Duffy again reassured travelers that flights to and from the airport are safe.
The Federal Aviation Administration is considering reducing flights at the airport where one runway is closed for long-planned rehab work.
Duffy told the lawmakers that the FAA “has brought in together all of the airlines who serve Newark to have a conversation about how there can be a delayed reduction.”
He further explained: “So, if you book your flight, that flight is going to fly. You don’t have people at the airport for, you know, two, four, six hours, then a flight canceled. So we’re working through that now, hopefully in the next week or two, we’ll have additional really good news about the telecom progress that we’ve made.”
Also, the agency is replacing aging copper wire in the area that may have caused the problem. And the failed backup system is being looked at.
Duffy blamed the problems on the previous Biden administration.
“They didn’t test and make sure the lines were hardened … and they didn’t move the STARS system, which helps interpret radar,” Duffy said. “We’re working at lightning speed and pace to get this resolved.”
In the new budget, he promised to reduce bureaucracy, eliminate inefficiencies and reallocate savings to infrastructure.
“Our budget carefully focuses taxpayer resources on items critical to our most fundamental mission of safety and investing in transportation infrastructure,” Duffy said.
Duffy also blamed the Biden administration for spending money on climate and social justice projects.
“Our department, over the course of the last hundred days, has saved taxpayers roughly $9.5 billion,” Duffy said in his opening statement. “Those savings include monies pulled from projects tied to social justice, to climate requirements, also boondoggle projects, as well as bringing efficiencies to the department.”
Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat serving South Carolina, criticized what Duffy said.
“My late wife… had to walk two and a half miles to school every morning right past the White school, where the White kids had buses. That was social injustice,” Clyburn said. “Now, all of a sudden, we see this as wasteful government spending? I don’t think so. I think this is a wise investment in a country that has challenges that we need all people involved in.”
Duffy clarified that he wasn’t attacking the broader concept of social justice.
“What I see with the climate and the social justice requirements in the projects that you so dearly want built, that it’s adding costs on,” Duffy said. “It’s costing more money. If we take out 5 to 10% climate or social justice, that’s money we don’t have for additional projects. And that’s my concern.”
Duffy also denied a claim from Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., that 400 air traffic controllers have been let go out of a total of 14,000. There is a shortage of 3,000.
Duffy responded: “We have not fired — haven’t let go — anyone. Air traffic controllers? You said we let 400 go. No one in air traffic control has been allowed to take a deferred resignation offer. Not one. Not 400. Zero.”
The agency, with around 59,8000 employees, is involved in all national transportation safety in air, ground and water. That includes railroads.
This budget request includes a $1.2 billion increase for air traffic modernization and operations, $596 million to ramp up the port and shipyard infrastructure, $400 million more for freight rail safety and $770 million for multimodal freight expansion.
But there are $1.4 billion in cuts at DOT in some programs.
“I also want to make sure we address a bit of an elephant in the room,” Republican Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas, the chairman of the subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related agencies, said in prepared remarks. “This administration has undertaken efforts to seriously overhaul the federal bureaucracy while also taking a hard look at where our taxpayer dollars are being spent.
“This is a valiant effort that our House majority is supportive of, but I want to make something clear: efforts to restructure the Department of Transportation without congressional approval, to not execute programs appropriated by this committee, or to not give proper congressional notification when awarding or amending grants, concerns me.”
