• Washington rumors: FTA Chief Counsel Matthew Cahill will be named Acting Deputy Administrator. Mr. Cahill’s experience before joining the Trump Administration was as an attorney representing freight railroad interests. He has been at the FTA since November of last year. 

• A bipartisan group of 35 House members have weighed in against FRA’s proposal to rescind train dispatcher and signal employee certification requirements. Earlier this year, CRC, along with ASLRRA and AAR met with FRA to articulate opposition to the certification requirements. While the FRA’s rescission notice and the House letter focus on the cost of compliance, CRC’s concerns underscored certification rule’s failure to account for the impact for contracted employees who work across multiple railroads. Read more here.

• Per Politico: The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday advanced President Donald Trump’s nominee to head TSA. David Cummins, a former executive at government services contractor Serco, a company with ties to ICE, was approved 15-13 along party lines.

• Per Politico: In a Truth Social post this week, President Trump ordered his administration to open a so-called suspension and debarment investigation into the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine for what he called a “fraudulent, biased, and misleading” publication on climate change.

  Trump’s order is the latest development in a series of Republican attacks on the National Academies over its work on climate change. The institution in December assisted the Federal Judicial Center — the education arm of the federal judiciary — in preparing a chapter on climate science for an education manual used by judges.

• DOT Secretary Sean Duffy this week sent a letter to Senate Committee leadership with the administration’s surface transportation priorities. 

   The highlights:

  • Proposes eliminating Mass Transit from the Highway Trust Fund.

  • Although at the same time, the Administration proposes to grant the FTA authority to withhold up to 100% of formula funds if a transit agency “fails to demonstrate progress in reducing crime and fare evasion, and replace existing set-asides with a new, mandatory set-aside for safety and crime prevention projects.”

  • Includes statement that the Railway Safety Act must be included in any legislative package that extends or reauthorizes surface transportation funding.

  • CRISI (original stand-alone program) is available only for “small” rail projects. 

  • “Larger” railroads eligible for/compete in multimodal pot combining Mega/Rural/INFRA/CRISI/PIDP-ports in a new program named the Building Beautiful Infrastructure is Great (BBIG) program.

  • Duffy’s letter is silent on the FTA CIG program.

  Per Bloomberg Government, Duffy urged Congress “to condition Federal funds on a transit agency’s proven progress in reducing fare evasion, passenger assaults, and worker assaults.” The administration also wants a “voluntary AV pilot program” that would preempt state laws, as well as more restrictions on commercial driver’s licenses issued by states to non-residents. He also urged support for a mandate for two-person crews on trains and to approve $1 billion for improvements at Penn Station in New York City.

  Groups Press for Transit Funding: Unions and industry groups say Congress must maintain funding for grant programs for transit, rail, ferries, airports, and other infrastructure in any extension of surface transportation authorities. The letter to congressional leaders was signed by CRC and more than two dozen other groups.

WHY FORT WORTH? SO MANY REASONS!

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WHAT WE’RE READING

• Metra deploys security drones (Progressive Railroading)

• Metra introduces new drones to expand aerial monitoring, inspection capacity (Mass Transit)

• NJ Transit achieves its World Cup goooal! (Politico)

• The World Cup was a transportation stress test. Cities got an A-plus. (Smart Cities Dive)

• NJ Transit says 'curse of 2014 Super Bowl' over after World Cup showing (NorthJersey.com)

• The most surprising winner of the World Cup was American public transit (MSN)

• Analysis: ‘Build America 250 Act’ Amtrak, Rail Transit Implications (Railway Age)

• Caltrain ridership increased throughout FY26 (Progressive Railroading)

• DART names Ford new president and CEO (Progressive Railroading)

• Latest FRA report outlines upgrades to increase capacity at New York Penn Station (Mass Transit)

• Former transit secretaries urge tech focus for infrastructure bill (Commercial Carrier Journal)

• FTA releases new Transit Moves America dashboard for transit safety, security, performance data (Mass Transit)