Transportation Secretary Mayor Pete made his rounds on Face the Nation this weekend where he was both laughed at to his face by the host and suggested during the interview that increased airline turbulence is occurring as a result of climate change.
Early in the interview CBS’s Margaret Brennan called out Mayor Pete on something we wrote about just days ago: after spending more than $7 billion since 2021 on EV infrastructure, the nation has less than 10 EV chargers to show for it.
As we noted earlier this month, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by Biden in November 2021, allocated $7.5 billion for EV charging. Of this amount, $5 billion went to states as "formula funding" for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program to establish a network of fast chargers along major highways.
Today, there's seven chargers with a total of just 38 parking spots.
And how do you know the problem is bad if you're a Democrat? First, it was the Washington Post calling out the lunacy. Now, it's CBS. When pressed for an answer, Mayor Pete tried to deflect the issue, leading to an involuntary laugh by host Brennan.
WATCH: CBS’s Margaret Brennan laughs in Pete Buttigieg’s face when he is unable to explain why only 7 or 8 electric vehicle charging stations have been built despite the Biden admin spending $7.5 BILLION to build chargers. pic.twitter.com/BmFK17Dk5O
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 26, 2024
If that wasn't bad enough, later in the interview Mayor Pete commented that
Speaking about the recent injuries on a Singapore Airlines flight that was met with severe turbulence, he said that the incident was "very rare," but also that "turbulence can happen and sometimes it can happen unexpectedly."
Then, tying the two issues together, he said: "Our climate is evolving. Our policies and our technology and our infrastructure have to evolve accordingly."
.@SecretaryPete says an increase in flight turbulence is one of the effects of climate change that "are already upon us in terms of our transportation."
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 26, 2024
He says the deadly turbulence on a recent Singapore Airlines flight is "very rare," but "turbulence can happen and sometimes… pic.twitter.com/GIOvMHi7fh
“We’ve seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn’t statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest,” he continued, according to the NY Post.
“This is all about making sure that we stay ahead of the curve, keeping aviation as safe as it is. It’s not for nothing that it became the safest form of travel in America. We’ve got to treat that not as some mission accomplished.”
He also pointed out a declining number of air traffic controllers: “We inherited about a decade of falling numbers in terms of the number of air traffic controllers in the workforce. We’ve stabilized that.”
And finally, when pressed on the inordinate number of incidents involving Boeing aircraft, he said: “There’s an encouraging part and a concerning part. We want Boeing, and any producer in the aviation space, to have a culture of if you see something, say something.”
When asked if he thought Boeing was stifling whistleblowers, he responded: “I’m not here to make an accusation like that at this time.”
