Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The Secretary of Transportation, Pete Bodhaje Edge in the wake of the devastation that we've seen left by Hurricane Helene, Mister Secretary, welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. There are a number of things we'd love to ask you about, beginning with this. People who are living in the most impacted areas right now feel like they're living on another planet. I spoke with a friend of mine in Asheville, North Carolina, earlier
today on an old fashioned phone. By the way, Prema said, we have no water, no power, no Wi Fi. We're bathing in the creek, boiling water to drink. There's supposed to be food and water tents, but we can't access info on where they're located. And she says the roads are filled with trees and power lines, so we can't
get there anyway. We'd love for you to give us a real time update, if you would, on what's happening on the ground here and when people like Premo will get some information on how they can help themselves.
So yeah, the situation, especially in parts of North Carolina, but really across a number of states is absolutely shocking, and of course the best information for anyone directly impacted is going to come from local responders, local authorities. But what I can say from the transportation perspective on the federal side is that we have been engaged with the state leadership, with our folks on the ground really from the early phases of this to make sure that we
can target resources to help restore that normalcy. You mentioned a number of roads. We're finding reports of hundreds of roads that have been compromised, affected by landslides, mudslides, flooding, as well as the number of bridges that have either been compromised or need to be inspected for twenty six including in key parts of North Carolina and Tennessee impacted, and it's going to be a while before that sense of normalcy returns. But who's our working very quickly to
assess the damage and to clear away obstruction. We're able to provide funding to help make sure that that is never an obstacle to quick action, something that unfortunately is a tool we've had to use many times, most notably recently with the ship strike in Baltimore. But I've reached out to the governors of six impacted states, and our in state personnel have been working to help make sure
that those assessments take place. The first priority, of course, is safety, making sure that a bridge is in fact safe before it's cleared for traffic to travel on it, making sure that those roads aren't compromised as well. But first and foremost, our hearts go out to everybody who's been impacted, and President Biden has asked every part of this administration to be there for as long as it takes, and that's exactly what we're doing.
Well, how long, mister Secretary, do you expect it will take? You mentioned it could be quite a while until there's a return to normalcy in these areas. When it comes to actual transit infrastructure, what timeline do you think is realistic? And frankly what costs?
Well, the timeline will be dictated by safety, and that's part of what the hundreds of inspections that are already getting underway are going to tell us. When is it a case of simply being able to certify that, for example, a rural bridge is good to go. When is it in a condition that means there's going to need to be a limit on the loads that can go on
that bridge till it can be reinforced. When do you have a situation where a bridge may look okay, but actually it has been undermined by the floodwaters and has to be closed completely. We can't say in advance what those inspections are going to reveal safety wise, but what we can say is we're going to make sure that the availability of federal dollars is not an obstacle to
quick action. I expect the price tag will be enormous, certainly in terms of a natural disaster, outpaces anything so far mathematically that I've seen in terms of highway funding requests likely to come in. Now, we do have an emergency relief fund for this purpose. It will be able to respond to the immediate needs. But I don't see how we get the funding that's going to be needed overall without turning to Congress. I know even now they
are biparties and conversations beginning about how to put that request. Together.
Well, i'd like to ask you about that, mister Secretary, among some of the other topics we'd like to get into. Is it time to call lawmakers back? Do you think that that's something that we will see between now and the election. Otherwise the people impacted by this storm could be waiting quite a long time.
Well, again, we do have billions of dollars available in the Emergency Relief Fund, So just strictly speaking for the US DOT, we're not looking at a run on the bank in the next few days or weeks. But we do face a bigger structural issue if Congress doesn't replenish that fund to be able to keep up with demands. Now, we have an authority called quick Release that means that we can get a very quick turn on some of
these dollars. But at the end of the day, when you talk about the level of destruction that we are witnessing that some communities are still assessing the level of damage, I just don't see how it's going to happen without a lot of concerted bipartisan action across the country and from across the aisle.
Well, and that's one of the reasons why this timing is so difficult, not only because Congress is not in session, but also because, Sir, of something that could happen in a minute past midnight, just hours from now, forty five thousand dock workers on ports along the East Coast and Gulf are set to go on strike unless some last minute agreement could be reached. These are ports that handle imports of goods that may be needed in some of
these areas affected by Hurricane Helene. Is that factoring into the conversations at all from your understanding and frankly, what can be done to secure those supply chains. If this strike does indeed.
Happen, it's certainly something that adds to what is already the major importance of America's ports, and it's why we have been engaging the parties really for months as it's been known that this deadline was approached, because it will take the parties coming to terms that means, the ocean carriers, in the ports and the dock workers in order to
prevent a strike like that. Now, if you think about the timelines of ocean shipping, obviously they're very different from the timelines associated with something like air freight, and the stocks that you expect to see aren't to kind of a day by day thing, But it doesn't take long
before you would really feel the impacts of that. Now, we've established tools here at the Department of Transportation to help manage some of the very different supply chain issues that we've seen starting with COVID than what happened on the Red Sea, issues with water levels in the Mississippi River, in the Panama Canal, and now the potential for labor
action and the impact that that would have. It means we've got a dialogue with a number of logistics and shipping players who weren't all talking to us or to each other before we built up some of these relationships
and some of these tools. Apartment just today had another convening that my colleagues at dot brought together with about sixty different players across logistics and supply chains to make sure that we're mapping everything in anything that needs to happen in terms of adjustments or flexibilities across road, rail
and different ports across the United States. But certainly the best thing that could happen is for the parties to quickly come to terms to do that before midnight and for there would be no work stoppage.
Well, yeah, we're talking about basically half the imports coming into the United States that these East Coast and Gulf Coast ports are receiving. Mister Secretary, This really speaks to the focus of your job right now, could you be more specific about the contingency plans that you're making to avoid another snarling of our supply lines and avoid another inflationary experience that we all remember from our ports.
Well. Again, we've been using tools that we've built up, a new multi mode Little Freight Office created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Regular Convenence, a new tool that we established called Flow, which helps to map the longer forecast for what's happening with ups and downs of container shipping, engaging with the beneficial cargo owners, the shippers, the store chains and others that actually have the goods
coming across on those containers and understanding better the positioning that they've had. Now, there was some activity over the spring and the summer with the anticipation of the possibility of an issue on the East coast, which led some cargo to be directed to the West coast instead, But there's really no substitute for the ports being up and running.
That's why the ports are where they are. And again the most important thing is going to be for the carriers, the shippers and the workers to come to terms so that everybody can be working and goods can move smoothly.
Well, mister Secretary, this is just one example of what seems to be broaderly strife in transportation. We've seen it in just the last few years with rail We've seen it with cars. Now we're seeing it obviously at the ports. We're seeing it too with planemakers. Is the stripe is still ongoing of the Boeing machinist now entering it's third week. What exactly do you see happening here thematically and couldn't reshape American transportation moving forward?
Yeah, we've definitely seen a bigger, broader pattern in recent years.
It's been characterized by these businesses in those sectors doing very well, a lot of profitability, certainly when you talk about shipping or when you talk about railroading, and workers insisting on participating in those earnings, and frankly having a president who supports the idea that these contracts should arrive on terms that are working for business, but also that are working for workers and allowing them a chance to
participate in these sometimes record breaking profits. That's what you saw, for example recently with a historic deal that was reached with American Airlines and their flight attendants. We've seen a major raise going to rail workers, and also an issue that was not resolved at the time of the threats of a strike with rail workers a couple of years ago. At the time, only about five percent of them had
access to sick leave. Right now, that's about a ninety percent, and we were pushing for the railroad companies that can get that last ten percent done to get together with their unions and make that happen. But there's no question that you see a period where workers are seeking to participate in the economic growth that's happening. You could obviously say the same in terms of the historic deal that
was reached with auto workers. And look, when you have historic profits and you look at ocean shipping, it became an unbelievably profitable industry over recent years. Then of course you're going to see workers seeking to participate in that to make sure that they're getting a share of that. The whole idea of collective bargaining is to reach an agreement on something that is consistent with the business thriving
and empower the workers to thrive. We've seen that happen in time and time again as the result of collective bargaining, and it's what the President hopes and expects to see here as well.
Well, you must, mister Secretary, you must feel like you're running the labor department over the course of this conversation today. So I guess i'd have to ask you ahead of tomorrow night's vice presidential debate in our remaining moment. I know this is something that you've been involved in here, what is the message when it comes to labor that will win swing state votes?
Well, you know, in this capacity, I can't speak about the campaign and election side of things, but what I will say is that you do have an administration that is proudly pro worker. The President prides himself on being the most historically pro labor president in modern times. And again, you know, he's also demonstrated, given the record profitability and economic growth that we've seen, that being pro worker can
be consistent with business thriving too. Certainly, you're right have been involved in a lot of labor matters, but I don't want to take any credit from our Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Sue, who's been doing an enormous amount of work, both in this particular case, engaging the different parties to help them make progress at the table when it comes to the dock workers, and generally just doing a fantastic job helping to make sure that we have
economic growth and worker empowerment at the same time.
All Right, mister Secretary, thank you very much for your time this evening on what I'm sure has been a busy several days. That's Transportation Secretary Pete buddhaj Edge