During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in July, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) spoke about the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol.
00:00I thank my friend from from New Mexico and I would note that the Department of
00:05Transportation Office of Multimodal Transportation is unlikely to have any
00:10direct responsibilities concerning January 6th and if we want to have a
00:15discussion about January 6th I'm more than happy to do so and I'm happy to say
00:19under no way shape or form was January 6th an insurrection I think that's a
00:22term that is loaded with partisan content and is inaccurately describes what
00:29occurred that day but given this hearing is on DOT nominees this is probably not
00:33not your chairman I think we could both agree was a bad day though I think this
00:38is not the right forum for that discussion senator Moreno well thank you
00:42mr. chairman and congratulations to all of you on being nominated I'm sure it's
00:46you feel the way most people would feel in your position which is a great honor
00:50to be asked by the president of the United States to serve their country miss
00:54Oz I'll start with you when you look at your job and making certain that we're
01:00advancing research and technology and the automobile industry do you where do you
01:06see a vision of where we are from a transportation perspective and let's say
01:1010 or 15 years is private ownership of cars still a factor or our self-driving
01:18autonomous vehicles going to be the primary and only means of transportation
01:24senator first of all it's good to see you I enjoyed our time together in your
01:28offices beautiful offices and we touched on some of these subjects so and I
01:33appreciate your interest in the automotive industry and of your
01:36continued commitment I do believe Americans deserve a choice they deserve a
01:41choice on what type of modality they they wish to use to get from point to be
01:45point A to point B in some cases we may not know we may no longer want or need to
01:50drive in traffic anymore so and in some cases we want to turn on the ignition and
01:54just you know go on a deep rural drive somewhere in the back road so we should
01:58have that choice there is some learnings that we can take probably from the
02:03first use cases for the self-driving cars other than freight will most likely be in
02:10the realm of fleet management because it's going to be easier to maintain
02:15fleets of vehicles turn them on the home base get them maintained properly but
02:20that will also mean more cars being sold in total volume because if you can drive
02:25a hundred thousand miles in one year on a fleet vehicle with 90% you up utility
02:30optimization you can sell more cars sure well again I'm not I'm not concerned about
02:35the number of vehicles hold I'm concerned about ultimately are we looking to
02:39replace private ownership of cars like that's that's my main question because
02:43here here's the the concern I have during the during the Biden administration they
02:49had a very unhealthy obsession with EVs and that led to a disastrous amount of
02:55government money spent hundreds of billions of dollars and subsidies they
02:59drove car companies almost off the cliff to make EVs California of course lost their
03:04mind whatever was left of it and wanted everybody driving an electric vehicle
03:08thanks to the Congressional Review Act we ended that thanks to our chairman who
03:12did a lot of work with the one big beautiful bill we've now made kind of an
03:17old-fashioned concept come true which is car companies should make the cars that
03:20people want to buy so my question to you and what I worry about is that we don't
03:25want to go from an obsession with EVs to an obsession with AVs and we
03:29obviously understand level 1 autonomy the level 4 autonomy totally understand as
03:34long as it's optional as long as it's not mandated that somebody buy that tech
03:39you know one of the things I find interesting is my colleagues talk about
03:42how all these safety technology should be mandated I took the time to find out
03:46what kind of cars they personally drive and you'd be shocked to know that they
03:49didn't purchase themselves those advanced driving technologies so they don't want to
03:54spend the their own personal money to buy more safety systems and their own cars
03:59but want to mandate that very same technology for all Americans you know
04:04rules for thee but not for me my question to you when you're advising our great
04:09secretary of transportation slash NASA administrator maybe we'll nominate him to
04:13be the chairman of the Federal Reserve too he would definitely do a better job
04:16than Jerome Powell but that's a different cop top topic for I think they're giving
04:20that to Marco Rubio well he I think the quote is four jobs so I so Sean still has
04:26to a couple more left but back to the point when you're advising him I just want to be
04:33clear-eyed about your advice to him is it going to be a we have to move to level 5
04:39autonomy and start down the path of eliminating private ownership of cars or is this how do we
04:47invest more in level 1 through level 4 to drive those technologies to be less expensive so that
04:54more customers on their own like my colleagues who currently have not chosen to buy those technologies
05:00because maybe they thought they were too expensive to have and it's a big difference in that conversation
05:04senator I appreciate the the analysis and costs and affordability is a critical measurement in terms of
05:12this freedom and I think we support and I will support all of the above in terms of level 1 through
05:17level 4 I don't think we'll see level 5 in my lifetime but I do think that we can see this capability deployed on all
05:24different types of engines whether they're ice or electric so in that case I think I would support your your view on
05:31this thank you because what I don't want to live is in a dystopian future in which big tech controls the
05:37transportation industry in America you know as you know we talked about this in my office
05:41America did not invent the automobile but we invented what the automobile became and the
05:47automobile is the ultimate expression of freedom the idea that I'm here in
05:50Washington DC I can go where the heck I want in a car that I own not controlled by big tech not controlled by government I can decide what kind of car I buy with my own money
05:58it's a concept that my Democrat colleagues over the last four years lost sight of
06:03they they said all of the above they said we want to give consumers choice but in
06:07reality the heavy heavy hand of government was taking away those choices and I just
06:12want to be credibly clear that from your perspective this is not about mandating or
06:18driving America towards the point in time in which the only people that control
06:23transportation this country is giant technology companies that would mine our
06:28data and have complete control over our lives because it could control where we
06:32went and how we went there just want to be clear that that is absolutely not
06:36something that you would support I will support the freedom of choice and the
06:42freedom to drive in this country because it's a part of our way of life thank you
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