Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg He said Thursday that the U.S. has a “once-a-century opportunity” to push for infrastructure reforms and added that the country is on the brink of an “infrastructure season” that could potentially become a “decade of infrastructure.” ‘infrastructures’. Buttigieg spoke Thursday at virtual South by Southwest Festival.
“In the last administration, infrastructure week became a fist,” Buttigieg said during a master’s session. “We continued to have our hopes for something big to happen in infrastructure and it never did.”
The new transport secretary said his vision of 21st century infrastructure includes the “unglamorous” task of repairing roads and bridges across the country, while ensuring that transport plays a key role in helping the battle climate change.
“Transportation can be part of the solution,” Buttigieg said. “In fact, it has to be because transportation is the most important part of the problem. We are the most important sector when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, which means the best we can do to get the our economy is right is to improve transportation. track “.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), transportation-derived greenhouse gas emissions account for nearly 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The EPA says that between 1990 and 2018, greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector increased more in absolute terms than any other sector.
Buttigieg said technological and political advances are needed for the transportation industry to make an impact in the fight against climate change. “Car electrification” is an important milestone in that direction, he said, but he acknowledged that electric vehicles alone will not solve the problem.
“If your car is electric and the electricity comes from coal, it’s not a clean car,” said Buttigieg, who added that he wants a “vigorous debate” between Republicans and Democrats on how the United States can get to net emissions by 2050.
“What we want to discuss is which plan is better rather than whether we should do it because, frankly, we’re out of time to argue. We literally can’t afford to get stuck,” Buttigieg said. .
Buttigieg also stressed the need to improve the nation’s rail system during his first weeks in office. Last month, he visited Union Station in Washington DC to meet with Amtrak workers and traffic executives.
On Thursday, he affirmed the importance of the $ 1.9 trillion from the rescue plan for the transportation industry and said the resources provided will allow the country’s traffic systems to continue to operate.
He Coronavirus pandemic severely affected Amtrak, which lost 90% of its workforce last year and was forced to divulge plans to cut a fifth of its workforce. Buttigieg said the additional resources are “critical” to Amtrak’s ability to operate on all of its routes.
The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said passenger rail service in America should not be inferior to other countries and added that investments to improve railroads “should be a national option.”
Two years ago, Buttigieg was a relatively unknown voice on the national stage when he appeared in front of a small crowd in South by Southwest shortly after launching his historic presidential campaign.
Now, as confirmed by the first gay secretary of the U.S. Senate cabinet, Buttigieg said he is “still processing” the experience of being catapulted across the country in recent years. He added that his role in the cabinet recalls the extent to which the LGBTQ community has achieved equality.
“There were people who, no matter being a soldier or a cabinet officer, couldn’t be a bookkeeper or an astronomer in the federal government because you were considered a threat because you were different,” Buttigieg said.