Yes, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation can actually spend his time on transportation issues and not paternity leave, transportation equity, and racist highways.

Instead of treating transportation as a side project, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has spent roughly 19 months focused on the business of running the Transportation Department – roads, bridges, aviation, trucking safety, and coming up with taxpayer savings – a sharp turn from the Buttigieg era’s emphasis on diversity, equity, climate initiatives and electric vehicles.

According to a report from Just the News, Duffy has targeted commercial-driver safety, modernized air-traffic-control infrastructure, and pushed billions toward rail, road, and airport improvements. DOT has also finalized tighter rules aimed at keeping unqualified foreign drivers from obtaining commercial licenses.

The DOT has also produced roughly $14 billion in savings through regulatory cuts and canceled projects, while eliminating about 600,000 words of regulations.

Additionally, the agency is attacking an inherited backlog of roughly 3,200 unobligated grants. Nearly half have since been obligated after stripping DEI and climate change mandates out of them, moving about $9 billion toward roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.

After four years where Buttigieg became better known nationally for culture-war debates, EV policy, and presidential ambitions than fixing Americans’ transportation headaches, Duffy’s approach seems almost revolutionary: Run the Transportation Department like a Transportation Department.

Novel concept, I know.