Norman Mineta Steps Down as Transportation Secretary
Mineta, 74, served five and a half years at DOT, making him the longest-serving Transportation Secretary.
Oliver B.Patton
Washington Editor
Norman Y. Mineta resigned his post as Secretary of Transportation on July 7. The communications firm Hill & Knowlton later announced that Mineta has signed on as vice chairman.
Mineta, 74, served five and a half years at DOT, making him the longest-serving U.S. transportation secretary. He also presided over what must surely be the most tumultuous period in the department's history.
It was Mineta who approved the emergency order on Sept. 11, 2001, to land all civilian airplanes immediately. In the wake of the attack, Mineta headed the effort to launch the Transportation Security Administration and create the airline passenger screening system in place today. TSA was an agency of DOT before it was moved to the Department of Homeland Security.
In his letter to President Bush, Mineta said he is proud of DOT's performance during that period. "From the earliest moments of that horrible day and for weeks and months after, the personnel of (DOT) performed quickly, courageously and effectively," he said. "From bringing thousands of civilian flights to safe landings in a few hours, to designing, creating and staffing (TSA) in less than a year, the people in DOT served our nation and your administration very well."
Mineta, the sole Democrat in Bush's cabinet, noted that there are "deep ideological and partisan divisions at every level of government, most especially here in Washington, D.C."
"But," he continued, "since our first conversation in Austin on Jan. 2, 2001, up until and including this very day, you have treated me ... with great respect and courtesy. Over the past five and a half years, I would like to think that you and I have demonstrated, even in a small way, that different political affiliations do not have to translate into opposing views on the value of public policy issues or the nobility of public service."
Mineta, who hails from San Jose, Calif., served 21 years in Congress, rising to be chairman of the powerful Committee on Public Works and Transportation (now called the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee). Throughout his career on the Hill he was a strong advocate of re-investment in the national highway infrastructure. He was a prime mover in the campaign to separate the transportation trust funds from the unified federal budget and give the highway program an independent source of support.
His signature legislative achievement while secretary of transportation, the current highway program (SAFETEA-LU), increased funding, but does not go nearly as far as many wanted. House leaders on both sides of the aisle wanted to raise fuel taxes to finance more infrastructure investment, but the Bush Administration rejected that move. With road congestion taking an ever-bigger bite out of transportation productivity, that issue is likely to be high on the agenda when Congress gears up for the next highway program, due in 2009.
In recent months Mineta has been pushing government and industry to come up with innovative ways to improve and supplement traditional methods of financing highways (See related stories beginning on page 30).
He created the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, among whose 12 members is Pat Quinn, chairman of the American Trucking Associations and co-chairman of U.S. Xpress. The commission will look for ways to resuscitate the Highway Trust Fund, and at the growing practice of building highways with private funding. It also is charged with looking into the congressional practice of earmarking special transportation projects – also known as pork.
In a farewell address the day before he left office, Mineta said the country needs to face three basic truths about the national transportation system.
First, the economy and transportation are global. "The U.S. has the strongest, fastest-growing economy in the developed world because we have the strongest transportation systems," he said. "But we will lose that competitive edge if we make a habit out of turning our noses up at investors in our seaports, airports and highways just because they are headquartered outside the U.S. Security is foremost, but it is pure folly to think that economic isolationism is an option in today's interconnected world."
Second, safety is global, too. "Mounting traffic deaths on the world's roadways can only be described as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions," he said. More than 1.2 million people die in road accidents each year, and accidents are costing $518 billion each year. "Traffic crashes are the most clearly preventable cause of death in the world"
Third, "highway congestion is not a fact of life." Mineta has spearheaded a Bush administration plan to alleviate congestion (See related story on page 30).
Mineta also leaves a safety legacy. He noted in his letter to Bush that in the past four years the country has had the lowest vehicle fatality rate ever recorded. He was instrumental in the creation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and presided over the rewrite of the hours of service rules. Those rules are still in legal limbo due to ongoing litigation, but it took a significant act of political will to complete the initial regulatory process.
Mineta served as U.S. secretary of commerce during the Clinton administration, which made him the first Asian-American to serve as a cabinet officer. The formative experience of his childhood was the forced internment of his Japanese-American family by the U.S. government during World War II.
He, his parents and siblings were taken from San Jose to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, near Cody, Wyo.
Later, in Congress, Mineta was a leading supporter of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for the internment and paid reparations to the families.
Mineta and his wife, Danealia, have two sons and two stepsons.
As HDT went to press, there was no official word on who might be nominated to succeed Mineta. Among the names being mentioned in the press and in Washington gossip were American Trucking Associations CEO Bill Graves; Federal Aviation Administration chief Marion Blakey; DOT Deputy Secretary Maria Cino; former Federal Highway Administration chief Mary Peters; and former DOT Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson, who now serves as deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security.
Washington Report continued...
