[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S401-S402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Nomination of Sean Duffy

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, we are confirming former 
Congressman Sean Duffy as the new Secretary of Transportation.
  Our Nation's infrastructure is essential to the economy, trade, and 
vitality of each of our 50 States. In Iowa, it is fundamental to moving 
our agriculture products, manufacturing goods, and, of course, our 3.3 
million people.
  I have long supported sound, sustainable infrastructure policies that 
provide certainty to businesses, States, and the transportation 
community. I agree that businesses and State and local governments need 
long-term visions and plans to ensure our infrastructure networks 
remain strong and support our Nation's economic growth and 
competitiveness.
  We are soon faced, in this body and in the entire Congress, with 
reauthorizing our Nation's surface transportation laws. I am glad that 
Congressman Duffy understands, from representing Northwest Wisconsin, 
that rural America has many infrastructure needs--as many as urban 
areas. I supported the bipartisan infrastructure bill to provide needed 
funding to repair and replace Iowa's aging infrastructure. I look 
forward to working with him to advance Iowa's priorities and sound 
policies for the Nation.
  Now, in the case of Secretary Duffy, even though I didn't meet with 
him in my office, like I do a lot of nominees, I stress today the 
importance of responding to congressional letters and inquiries. 
Congress has a constitutional duty to perform oversight over the 
executive branch for, as we learn in high school civics, what we call 
checks and balances. Congress not only passes laws and appropriates 
money, but we have a responsibility to make sure that those laws are 
faithfully executed by whomever is President of the United States.
  Oversight, then, allows us to hold bureaucrats accountable to the 
rule of law, and it helps to keep faith with taxpayers. Or another way 
of saying it, if we have transparency in government, which the 
oversight of Congress ought to implement, we have greater 
accountability of our work.
  Currently, I have been conducting oversight over the FAA and the 
safety of Boeing aircraft. I fully expect the new Secretary to respond 
to all congressional inquiries in a timely and responsive manner.
  When people come to my office, I remind them of that question they 
get from every chairman of every committee: Will you answer the letters 
that we send, or will you appear before Congress, or will you take our 
telephone calls?
  Every one of them says yes, but that is not entirely how it works 
out. I use an example of the Justice Department the last 4 years--as I 
showed soon-to-be Attorney General Pam Bondi--that I wrote 158 letters 
to the Justice Department. And if I got answers, they were partial 
answers, but most were not responded to. That is not the way that the 
executive branch of government, either under a Democrat or Republican 
President, should be handling or, let's say, should be thumbing their 
nose at the legislative branch of government.
  So when people say yes to these questions that they are offered by 
the chairmen of the committee, I say to them: It would be more honest 
if you

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would say maybe instead of saying yes. So I hope that Secretary-to-be 
Duffy will respond to my inquiries about the FAA and Boeing aircraft.
  I look forward to working with former Congressman Duffy to support 
long-term infrastructure policies to keep our manufacturing and our 
agriculture sectors robust and to support our State and local 
communities that depend on their jobs.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant executive clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.