| | | | |  | | By Sam Ogozalek and Chris Marquette | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Oriana Pawlyk and Cassandra Dumay
| | | | — In western North Carolina, there are still hundreds of road closures two weeks after Hurricane Helene. It’s a troubling sign for communities not used to hurricane prep as the climate warms. — The Department of Transportation’s inspector general dinged the FAA for its oversight of Boeing, saying the agency has been ineffective. — SpaceX caught its returning Starship booster with mechanical arms — a major achievement for the company. IT’S TUESDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. We’re glad you’re here. Send tips, feedback and song lyrics to Sam at sogozalek@politico.com, Chris at cmarquette@politico.com, Oriana at opawlyk@politico.com and Cassandra at cdumay@politico.com and follow us at @SamOgozalek, @ChrisMarquette_, @Oriana0214 and @cassandra_dumay. “Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom/ Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room/ I’m a man of means by no means/ King of the road.” Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
| | | | A message from Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition: A new report from companies across the aviation world outlines actionable steps the industry can take to improve aviation safety by helping prevent unapproved parts from entering the supply chain. Read the report. | | | | | ‘WE’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS’: Across western North Carolina, there was too much water. It ate away at mountainside roadways, swept through rural streets and crashed into homes. Hurricane Helene made landfall more than 500 miles away in Florida yet still swamped this corner of the state — a cautionary tale in the age of climate change for areas far from the East and Gulf Coasts, where small blue signs denote hurricane evacuation routes and residents stock up on nonperishable food, fearing the “Big One,” every year. — Recovering from the catastrophic hurricane, which along with other storms dumped biblical amounts of rain in North Carolina, will be a monumental task. Two weeks since Helene spun across the Southeast, there are still over 500 road closures in the western part of the state, according to a POLITICO analysis of North Carolina Department of Transportation data. The hardest hit counties as of press time were Henderson, which borders South Carolina, with 99 closures, and Yancey, near eastern Tennessee, with 79. Buncombe County, the home of Asheville, had 52 closures. Interstate 40, a key link between North Carolina and Tennessee, remained shuttered at the state line with no estimated reopening time.
| — “We’ve never seen anything like this,” Mike Morgan, chief communications officer for Henderson County, told Morning Transportation in an interview. The rural, eastern part of the county, he said, experienced the worst effects as the Broad River — which ran two to three times its normal water level — washed out roads. Morgan shared a recent photo of U.S. 64 in the area:
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U.S. 64 is seen in the Bat Cave area of Henderson County, North Carolina. | Henderson County | PROGRESS BEING MADE: In a Monday update , NCDOT said crews and contractors have reopened over 600 roads, and the Federal Highway Administration has sent $100 million in emergency relief funds to NCDOT. BUT A SHELTER NO MORE: Morgan, the Henderson County spokesperson, in a text message noted that, when it comes to hurricanes, “Usually the maps point to us as a safe place to come to.” Cathleen Kelly, senior energy and environment fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, said extreme weather events are not anomalies. — “We have to be rethinking the way that we design and plan communities and infrastructure that takes into account that climate change is here,” Kelly said.
| | NOT DOING ENOUGH: DOT’s inspector general says the FAA’s oversight of Boeing has been ineffective, noting that the January door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines jet “reinforces the need for FAA to move beyond its reactive approach and clearly define expectations before Boeing can regain authority to issue airworthiness certificates and increase production rates.” — The IG released a report Friday that offered the agency 16 recommendations, including that the FAA keep a closer watch on the aerospace company’s parts suppliers. The FAA said it agreed with the IG’s findings, and Boeing said it continues to “engage transparently with regulators and other stakeholders to improve quality and safety and regain the trust of the flying public.” Oriana has the details. MAJOR JOB CUTS: Boeing on Friday said it would cut 10 percent of its workforce, or roughly 17,000 employees, as it continues to take financial losses amid the ongoing machinists strike. “As we move through this process, we will maintain our steadfast focus on safety, quality and delivering for our customers,” CEO Kelly Ortberg said in an email to employees. — Ortberg also said that the first deliveries of Boeing’s 777X, its new long-range, wide-body passenger jet, will be delayed to 2026. (The company’s test fleet recently suffered a setback after it found a problem within a structure that mounts the engines to the aircraft.) Ortberg noted that development challenges, the “flight test pause” and the work stoppage pushed back the program’s timeline. AWAITING A DECISION: During a hearing Friday, federal Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas told Boeing, the Justice Department and relatives of victims in the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes that he would “get a ruling out just as soon as I can” on Boeing’s guilty plea agreement with the DOJ. O’Connor gave no indication on which way he was leaning, the AP reports.
| | | | ENGINEERING FEAT: SpaceX on Sunday launched its massive Starship rocket and successfully caught its returning booster with mechanical arms (nicknamed “Mechazilla”) at its launch pad in South Texas. The first-ever “catch” is a significant milestone for Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, which aims to make its rockets fully reusable. “Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today,” Musk posted on X. — The FAA announced Saturday that it would allow SpaceX to conduct the test Sunday, saying the company met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements. The agency’s OK came after it previously said a decision wasn’t expected until late November, upsetting Musk.
| | | | A message from Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition:   | | | | | RECOVERY UNDERWAY: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that 12,000 miles of state roads had been cleared in the wake of Hurricane Milton, which made landfall near Sarasota late Wednesday. Nearly 2,000 bridge inspections in the affected areas had been conducted, he said. Many commercial airports are back up and running, but Sarasota Bradenton International Airport will remain shuttered until 9 a.m. on Wednesday. — Port Tampa Bay, meanwhile, has reopened its shipping channels, and power has been restored at its seven private fuel terminals. To help address gas shortages, the state recently set up free distribution sites along the Gulf Coast. URGING ACTION: Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, in a Friday statement said the devastation from Milton and Helene “demands that Congress pass disaster relief as soon as possible.” “If there are any unnecessary delays,” he said, “American communities will needlessly suffer.” (As MT readers will know, House Speaker Mike Johnson has poured cold water on the idea of lawmakers returning before Election Day.)
| | NOT JUST US: Norfolk Southern is arguing before a federal district court in Ohio that OxyVinyls, the maker of the vinyl chloride that was burned following the East Palestine train derailment last year, should pay part of the $600 million class-action settlement the railroad is on the hook for after the incident. Norfolk Southern accused OxyVinyls of having “negligently caused the vent and burn.” — MT readers will know that the NTSB, at a hearing earlier this year, scolded the railroad for withholding information from local fire officials as it considered whether to vent and burn the five carloads of vinyl chloride, which ultimately released a toxic plume of black smoke into the town. (NTSB investigators said OxyVinyls told Norfolk Southern there was no risk of an explosion.) ‘REPEATED AND FALSE WARNINGS’: The railroad, though, is asking the court to make OxyVinyls assume some financial responsibility for the settlement. “Norfolk Southern’s recommendation to Unified Command to conduct the vent and burn was the foreseeable and actual result of OxyVinyls’s repeated and false warnings in the [safety data sheet] that heat could lead to polymerization and explosion,” the railroad said in a court filing. OXYVINYLS RESPONDS: Celina Cardenas, a spokesperson for OxyVinyls, in a statement said, “Norfolk Southern has refused to accept any responsibility for the derailment or its incomprehensible decision to vent and burn the five VCM cars” and has “pointed the finger in every other possible direction to try to justify its decision-making before, during, and after the derailment.”
| | | | — Brian Farber, a former DOT spokesperson during the Obama administration, has launched a strategic communications and public affairs firm, Momentum Square Strategies.
| | — “Inside the Nasty Rivalry Rocking the World of Private Jets .” Wall Street Journal. — “The Ultimate Southwest Insider Tasked With Reinventing the Airline.” Wall Street Journal. — “Unions Defy Their Leadership With More ‘No’ Votes on Contracts.” Wall Street Journal. — “ China’s Top Carmaker Dominates Foreign Rivals With $14,000 Plug-In Hybrid.” Wall Street Journal. — “Led by Believers in the City’s Future, Detroit Is on the Rebound.” New York Times. — “Operator dies and passengers injured as New Jersey commuter train hits a piece of a tree .” AP. — “Some transit riders haven’t returned due to crime fears. New fare gates aim to reassure them.” AP. — “Uber, Lyft Shares Jump After Tesla’s ‘Toothless’ Robotaxi Reveal.” Bloomberg. — “ European Carmakers Descend on Paris to Showcase Low-Cost EVs.” Bloomberg. — “Polestar CEO Says EV Maker Must Start ‘Actively Selling Cars.’” Bloomberg. — “US FAA approves SpaceX Falcon 9 return to flight after mishap probe.” Reuters. — “BYD tells EU to ‘stay away’ from tariffs as it expands European supply chain.” Reuters. — “EU tariffs on Chinese EVs to accelerate plant closures in Europe, Tavares says.” Reuters. — “ China trade tensions cast shadow on automakers’ investment plans, TomTom CEO says.” Reuters. — “DC launches pilot to charge e-bikes with solar power.” WTOP.
| | | | A message from Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition: The report outlines three categories of recommended actions to: strengthen vendor verification, digitize documents and signatures, and improve part traceability. With work on these steps already underway, the coalition is calling for more companies to join their effort to strengthen the aviation supply chain. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
