Department+of+Transportation

**Secretary of the Department of Transportation** Ray LaHood, the 16th Secretary of Transportation, was sworn in on January 23, 2009. His primary goals include safety across all modes of transportation, reviving the economic health and creating jobs, and molding the economy of the future by building a new transportation infrastructure, ensuring that transportation policies focus on those who use the transportation system and their communities. He heads an agency of more than55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget to be used towards air, maritime, and surface transportation. Before ascending to his current position, LaHood served for fourteen years in the House of Representatives from the 18th district of Illinois (1995-2009). He served on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and, later, on the House Appropriations Committee. Before being elected to the House, he was the Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Robert Michel, whom he was fated to succeed, and District Administrative Assistant to Congressman Thomas Railsback. In addition, he was a part of the Illinois State Legislature. Prior to his government career, LaHood was a middle school educator, having received his degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He also directed the Rock Island County Youth Services Bureau and Chief Planner for the Bi-States Metropolitan Planning Commission in Illinois. He and his wife, Kathy, have four children and nine grandchildren. Click on the image of LaHood below to watch an interview in which he discusses how a revitalized infrastructure can help create green jobs and stimulate the economy in California.

//The Mission Statement of the Department of Transportation:// //Serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.// **A Brief History of the Department of Transportation** The Department of Transportation was officially established by Congress on October 15, 1966, with its first official day of operation on the first of April in the following year. Before the Department of Transportation, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation was in charge of the functions of the DOT as known today. In 1965, Najeeb Halaby, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), suggested to President Lyndon Johnson that transportation rise to a cabinet-level post, and that the FAA become a part of the DOT. Charles Schultze, director of the Bureau of the Budget, and Joseph A. Califano, Jr., special assistant to Johnson, pushed for the new department. On October 22, 1965, the Boyd Task Force submitted recommendations that advocated establishing a Department of Transportation. With modifications, Johnson agreed, and the new agency would manage and coordinate transportation programs, provide leadership in resolving transportation-related issues, and develop national transportation policies and programs. It might be noted that the law that eventually established the DOT failed to pass Congress until ninety-two years after the first such legislation had been introduced. The desire to have some kind of governing force behind a system of national transportation might be traced as far back as Thomas Jefferson's Treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin, who recommended that the federal government subsidize such internal improvements as the National Road in 1808. Now, there are a little more than a dozen divisions that make up this department and, interestingly enough, two of the former divisions include the Transportation Security Administration and the United States Coast Guard--both of which were absorbed by the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. In fact, before 1966, the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers had helped foster trade and transportation. Some major legislation connected with this department include the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), Ubran Mass Transportation Act (1964), Airport and Airway Developmental Act (1970), and the Homeland Security Act (2002). **Some Department Goals Examined** Department of Transportation: Strategic Plan The Department of Transportation has set policy goals in five specific areas: Safety, Reduced Congestion, Global Connectivity, Environmental Stewardship, and Security, Preparedness, and Response. As it concerns safety (the department's primary focus), DOT would like to make strides in reducing transportation-related fatalities and injuries, regardless of increasing exposure to safety risks connected to demographics, globalization, and economic activity. In May of 2006, DOT announced a //National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on America's Transportation Network. //This initiative helped usher in a new era of federal leadership in the transportation sector, and it made congestion reduction a strategic goal for the first time in the department's history. In addition, the globalization of America's economy has placed more pressure on the country's ports, borders, and airports. DOT's Global Connectivity goal addresses issues with international transportation. One strategy in handling this involves opening international transportation markets, while the other is directed toward improving critical and varied modes of transportation. DOT also works towards an increased awareness of environmental challenges. Recent data has revealed that transportation exerts significant pressure on the global environment, and both commercial and personal transportation have grown tremendously and are expected to increase in spite of rising gas prices and presages of global warming. The department would like to find effective methods of reducing pollution and other negative effects of transportation to protect the health of the environment. Security Preparedness and Response is a reaction to the world as a result of events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. DOT would like to focus on policymaking, reviewing and validating intelligence, planning, building capabilities, training, and exercising scenarios.