Steven Bradbury

Announced as Trump’s pick for deputry Transportation secretary

Steven Bradbury is Trump’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of Transportation (DOT), and served as General Counsel of the DOT throughout Trump’s first administration, where he oversaw all DOT rulemaking and enforcement actions. Under his leadership, DOT led the Trump administration’s agencies on deregulation, cutting 23 regulations for every new regulation it issued in 2018. Bradley is currently a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a contributor to the DOT chapter of Project 2025, which proposes an extreme deregulatory agenda and the elimination of federal transit subsidies.

In June 2017, Bradbury was nominated to serve as General Counsel of DOT. His nomination was widely opposed by human rights groups and a bipartisan group of senators due to his role authoring a memo authorizing torture under the George W. Bush Administration. In November 2017, Bradbury was ultimately confirmed by the Senate in a slim partisan vote. He remained in his post through January 2021 and ended the last 8 days of the administration serving as Acting Secretary after Secretary Elaine Chao resigned following the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Bradbury’s tenure, marked by significant deregulation and a weakening of federal oversight, had significant safety and environmental implications. An illustrative set of dangerous actions under Bradbury’s leadership include:

– Trump’s DOT consistently delayed infrastructure projects and transportation improvements, which caused bottlenecks in various supply chains and transportation networks.

– Trump’s DOT revoked a requirement that state and regional authorities track tailpipe emissions from vehicles on federal highways, using program costs of ~$1.67M per year as an excuse.

– The Trump administration weakened Obama-era fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks and froze civil penalties for companies that violate fuel efficiency standards.

– Trump also attempted to cut the Highway Trust Fund in his 2018 budget proposal.

In the Project 2025 chapter on the DOT, it calls for a variety of controversial initiatives including cutting the Highway Trust Fund, a key source of public transportation funding, abolishing DOT’s discretionary grant-making processes, repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and stopping the United States’s focus on electric vehicle manufacturing and adoption.

Bradbury is best known for his role in authoring a memo that authorizes the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” during his tenure at the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under the George W. Bush administration. Specifically Bradbury authored the “torture memos” which provided legal justification for the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA. One of these memos authorized “the use of 13 different techniques to use against high value detainees, which included dietary manipulation, facial slap or insult slap, cramped confinement, water dousing and waterboarding”. These memos have been heavily criticized for endorsing practices that many consider to be torture and violations of the Geneva Convention.

Bradbury has also written many controversial opinion pieces for the Heritage Foundation including “How to Fix the FBI”. This article argues that the FBI has become overly politicized and that its national security operations threaten American liberties, and criticizes federal agencies for allegedly supporting censorship and suppressing free speech and religious liberty. Bradbury calls for prohibitions against federal involvement in censoring domestic disinformation and suggests disbanding entities like the Disinformation Governance Board.

Bradbury has also clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.

WHAT DOES PROJECT 2025 SAY ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

THE POLICIES

– Wind down the Highway Trust Fund, which provides funding for thousands of highway and public transportation projects each year.

– Give the Department of Transportation (DOT) priority over the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in setting vehicle-related carbon dioxide emission standards, and gut fuel economy standards, which, Project 2025 alleges, “have no meaningful effect on global temperature trends” and which “force the auto industry to transition to […] the production of EVs,” contrary to climate science and emissions data.

– Reject the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the airplane efficiency standards ICAO prescribes.

– Alter or eliminate the Cleaner Trucks Initiative to avoid what Project 2025 alleges are “significant costs” or “complex burdens on the industry.”

– Urge Congress to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

HOW ARE PROJECT 2025’S POLICIES POSSIBLE?

–Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act would require legislation, but many of the Biden DOT policies can be rescinded via the rulemaking process (no congressional action needed).

– New deregulatory rules can be issued so long as the Trump Administration complies with the Administrative Procedure Act.