Elaine Chao, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for transportation secretary, has her work cut out for her. But her biggest challenge may be finding the money to do it all. Chao will take office amid one of the fastest-paced transformations of the transportation industry in almost a century. Already, Trump's $1 trillion proposed infrastructure plan panned by critics like Sen. Bernie Sanders (IVt.) as a corporate welfare scam may not be enough to cover all the critical projects awaiting funding, according to by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The cost of fixing all the roads, bridges, public transit, railroads, energy systems, schools, public parts, ports, airports dams and other facilities is likely closer to $3.6 trillion. Chao, who served as labor secretary under President George W. Bush and deputy transportation secretary under President George H.W. Bush, will take office amid one of the fastest-paced transformations of the transportation industry in almost a century. Apple, Google, Uber, Tesla, General Motors and a bevy of other tech giants and automakers are producing autonomous driving systems. For years, Google has been testing its bug-like cars around its Mountain View, California, headquarters. In August, Uber began putting driverless SUVs on the road in Pittsburgh. vowed to sendBut unless regulations suddenly allow cars to drive themselves with no supervision, there will still be a person capable of driving in the car. That's because transportation officials have been slow to hand down rules on self-driving technology, which is limited in scope and restricted to highways in a handful of states. Chao now inherits that responsibility.
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A Google employeestands next to a prototype of the company's self-driving vehicle during a media preview in Mountain View, California, on Sept. 29, 2015. Like her predecessors in the Obama administration, Chao seems unlikely to put major restrictions on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. Last November, she supporting the business model pioneered by so-called "gig economy" services that classify workers as contractors instead of employees, skirting laws that would require them to provide certain employee benefits. "Literally millions of people today participate in the digitally-enabled, peer-to-peer economy," Chao said. "Despite its attraction for workers, however, some suggest the sharing economy is not a 21st century construct at all, but a new version of the 19th century 'piece work' economy. This ignores some basic realities, including who is working in the new economy, what type of work they are performing, and why." "There has been a lot of concern in Silicon Valley that, outside of tax policy, the Trump Administration will be hostile to disruptive technology companies," Dan Primack, a former top columnist at Fortune who is launching a , wrote on the self-publishing platform Medium. "At least for those in the transportation sector, those fears may have just been allayed." handed down new rulesStill, Chao's record on supporting the fossil fuel industry has drawn scorn from environmental groups. During her two-term tenure as labor secretary from 2001 to 2009, Chao for coal mine safety regulations. Last year, she resigned from the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies after the foundation ramped up its campaign to end the use of coal, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels. Chao's husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), represents Kentucky, a major coal-
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producing state, and has blamed regulations for shrinking the industry.
Trump, for his part, has repeatedly called climate change "a hoax," threatened to pull out of the historic Paris climate accord and vowed to scrap the Clean Power Plan, Obama's top tool for reducing carbon emissions. The president-elect's transition team is stacked with oil and gas executives and climate science deniers, including Myron Ebell, who is overseeing the incoming leadership of the Environmental Protection Agency. "Trump's pick for transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, would be wise to convince her potential new boss that urgent action on climate change and innovation of public transit will protect American lives," said Cassady Craighill, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace USA, before referencing Chao's most recent post at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "Chao's connection to institutions that manufacture climate denial, like the Heritage Foundation, requires the public demand she prioritize both public health and the impacts of climate change when managing our transportation infrastructure." Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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