President Donald Trump appointed Sean McMaster, a -ex -United States transport to the administrator of the federal road administration. Construction industry groups expressed their support for their confirmation.
The White House announced McMaster’s nomination on March 11, one day after sending -the Senate of the United States, which sent it to the Environment Committee and Public Works.
McMaster previously served as Deputy Chief Director of Cabinet and Deputy Secretary of the Congressional Affairs A Dot during the first Trump administration, who played a key role in developing the Agency’s proposal for the re -authorization of superficial transport and the definition of politics.
Since then, McMaster has worked in the private sector for the HNTB engineering firm and, more recently, for Boeing Co., before joining Dot, he was Congress staff, mainly for the former representative John Mic (R-fla.). He has also worked in the International Commerce Department of the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Department of Urban Housing and Development during the George W. Bush Administration.
If the Senate confirms McMaster on paper, he would direct the dowry agency, which is responsible for supporting the construction and maintenance of roads across the country. FHWA has normally distributed tens of thousands of dollars in recent years to states, local governments and tribes for various roads, bridge, tunnel and other related projects: FHWA spending $ 61.3 billion last year, although administration officials have indicated that they will probably not continue to spend with the same priorities as the Biden administration.
United States Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, recently terminated a couple of Biden memoirs who had commissioned FHWA officials to promote funding recipients of the 2021 Investment and Investigative Investment Places Law to select projects that met the agency’s priorities. Industry groups had opposed the original note of 2021, and FHWA administrator Shailen Bhatt later issued a replacement note in 2023, highlighting the role of states in the election of their own projects, but still reiterating the agency’s goals.
Under Duffy, Dot has also remodeled its policies for “ based on economic principles and solid analyzes supported on rigorous cost requirements and data-based decisions ” and moved to terminate a rule that requires that the state transport departments be monitored and the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the federal support.
Audrey Copeland, President and CEO of the National Aschalt Paving Association, said in a statement by email that the group “supports support [McMaster’s] “Expeditive confirmation.” Its candidacy comes at a critical time before the following surface transport authorization package, with the current financing planned for expiration next year.
Nile Elam, the Vice President of the Government Affairs Group, added that McMaster is “a great facilitator” that “a huge knowledge of the federal infrastructure policy and the critical roles that those of Capitol Hill and in the administration have in the management of our live surface transport network”.
Kristen Swearingen, Vice President of Legislative and Political Affairs of Associate Builders and Contractors, said that the group provides that MCMASTER “guarantees that all qualified and experienced construction companies have opportunities to build our transport infrastructure”, regardless of whether they use a union or non -union work.
