Washington — Feedback from state departments of transportation – “good, bad or ugly” – is a great thing for the federal government, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says.
Duffy took part in a Feb. 24 fireside chat with American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials President Russell McMurry during AASHTO’s annual Washington briefing.
“Where you see that we could do things better, you guys are the experts,” Duffy said to state DOT representatives in the audience. “Let us know where we have problems. Let us know how we can improve. If you have ideas on how we can streamline things, we would welcome that.”
He later added: “Honesty matters for all of us to do a better job.”
Duffy also discussed various regulatory actions in the trucking industry, including efforts on driver qualification.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026 (H.R. 7148), signed by President Donald Trump on Feb. 3, codifies an April Executive Order mandating that truck drivers be placed out of service for failing an English proficiency test. The test includes a driver interview and an assessment of highway traffic sign recognition.
“We didn’t create that rule; that rule has been there for decades,” Duffy said. “We’re starting to enforce it because there’s a safety component to it.”
Duffy also addressed DOT’s efforts to boost departmental efficiency.
“You just pass off the structure of how the department works from one administration to the next, and the policies might change at the top, but how it operates doesn’t change,” he said. “And it’s been that way for 40 years.
“And so, we’ve been thinking through how do we make the department work better? How do we make the department work more efficient? How do we restructure the department so we can be more responsive, that we can do things faster and better for the American people? And we’re in that process right now.”
In January, DOT announced a “comprehensive reorganization” of the Federal Aviation Administration, which an agency press release called the largest restructuring in FAA history.
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Original article published by Safety+Health an NSC publication