Secretary Buttigieg Remarks at Women of Trucking Advisory Board Inaugural Meeting

Well, thanks so much, Robin, and thanks to the whole FMCSA team. Kala Wright, Shannon Watson, and everybody for your work every day and for bringing this event together.

And a huge thank you to all of the members of the Women of Trucking Advisory Board. I've been looking forward to this -- excited to help kick off this convening with you. We've been working toward this for a long time. And I'm very proud of the group that's come together, and I'm very grateful to each of you for agreeing to take this on.

This is public service in the best sense. You are helping us strengthen an industry that is incredibly important in the American economy, and you're helping it be part of a journey towards equality that's part of a bigger story of something that America has been working toward one generation at a time from the founding. So, I hope you feel that a bit [as we are asking you to join us in] processes very technical and detailed about how to be a member of a federal advisory board, to the claims we're going to be making on your time. And again, just delighted that you've decided to take this on.

And I know this is likely the first time that most of you have been sitting on a federal advisory body like this. So, I just want to note how these work. Bodies like this, advisory groups, have helped to inform the plans of the federal government since the days of George Washington. And more recently, we've wrapped up two advisory committees, also within FMCSA, with their medical review board meetings. That's where doctors help us to establish the standards that we use for things like diabetes and vision testing among commercial vehicle drivers. So, I want you to think of yourself as like those medical experts on the medical review board; you are the experts on these very important issues that we are consulting to help to guide our work.

The broader context for this, as you know so well, is an urgent national need when it comes to our trucking. As I often say when I'm speaking in public, any time somebody opens a bottle of

water, or buys a new pair of jeans, or reaches for their medicine, or picks up the device that they're using to watch this event on, that was an item that was likely transported to them by several truck drivers. And I'm glad that, at last, "supply chain" is a term that every American knows about, even if the reason for that is the challenges that we've all been going through.

And those challenges are big. The American Trucking Association estimates that we're 80,000 truck drivers short. My Department, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics here at DOT, estimates that 300,000 drivers leave the career every year. So, we've got to do more, not just to get people through the door but to retain people in this industry.

And as you know, this is not just a priority for the Department and for me, this is at the heart of two major priorities of the President: addressing supply chains, so that we can lower costs for families; and making sure that workers get the pay and the respect and the safe conditions that every American worker ought to have.

You likely are aware of the President's Trucking Action Plan. It's, I think, safe to say it is the most comprehensive federal effort to support trucking in my lifetime. And, among other things, it includes work to improve truck driver pay, work on truck leasing arrangements to make sure they're not leading to predatory situations; and very importantly -- and this is where you come in -- addressing the unique challenges that women face in this industry every single day.

Right now, less than 10% of truck drivers are women. And that can't stand.

First of all, it's the right thing to do to make sure this is a great career for everyone. Also, I've just been out there emphasizing the arithmetic. The madness of allowing 50% of our workforce, 50% of Americans, 50% of the pool of talent that could be some of the greatest, safest drivers in the country -- to be underused, under-appreciated, and at this moment, when there's so much concern over that gap I just talked about.

So, we can't as a country be leaving any talent on the table. And if talent is being left out, or not being engaged, because driving is not welcoming, because driving is not safe, or because of any of the barriers that exist specifically for women in this career, then we have our work cut out for us.

And you know, I think about this a lot. I talk about this a lot. But the most important insights, obviously, aren't going to come from people like me. They're going to come from women who, as drivers, as professionals, as leaders in this sector, have been working on this and dealing with this firsthand. And that's you.

I've had a great set of opportunities to spend time with some of the women drivers who were part of America's road team. Rode along in the passenger seat with a driver, Lola, in Illinois, who gave me a sense of the rewards and the challenges she was facing on the job.

But ultimately, the most important thing is to have a systematic way to get women drivers' input into the policy making process. And that's you. The Women of Trucking Advisory Board.

You are the 16 founding members of this body, all women. You bring wide-ranging and impressive experience. You represent current and former drivers, trainers, owners, unions, nonprofits, institutions of higher education. You have, collectively, more than 80 years of driving experience, more than 275 years of combined industry experience, and millions of miles behind the wheel.

You are going to be advising us as board members on particular barriers that impact women, specific barriers that affect women of color, that affect women in different geographic areas, the safety issues and risks that are unique to women in trucking. And the ways in which stakeholders, including our department, but not limited to our department, can do a better job supporting women, creating opportunity, and increasing your ranks in this industry. So, today, your first meeting will be about combating and preventing violence and harassment against women truck drivers – perhaps the most urgent, pressing of the issues that this board is going to be asked to weigh in on.

Across all of the meetings that you have, when complete, your findings and your advice are going to go to the FMCSA Administrator -- Administrator Hutchinson -- who hopefully you have gotten to know a little bit now. And they will go to me. They will also go to Congress. And we know that we're not going to solve every challenge overnight, but we're going to be able to make a big difference here.

And, you know, the trucking industry, as you know, it's a private industry, it's a fragmented industry with a lot of different players, and so, we're mindful that government's power here to influence things is only partial. It's only limited. So, with your help, we need to send a broader message to the whole country. But I will guarantee you, with the powers that we have, this department will take action. Your findings and your advice will inform those actions. And I think it's going to make a difference what you put on the record before the sector as a whole, even beyond what government does.

I just want to give you a few examples of some of the tools that are in our hands and what we're doing with them.

We're using resources from the President's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund new truck parking across the country. We are implementing a national roadway safety strategy to reduce the levels of deaths on our roads. We have doubled truck driver apprenticeships. We are funding new training programs to bring drivers, including veterans, into the industry without debt.

And those are initiatives that were developed based on what we heard talking to drivers, talking to industry, about what they needed to succeed. So those are examples of the things that are underway. Now, we're going to need your expertise on everything from the way a parking facility is designed, to the way those apprenticeships are set up, the way training works -- all of that, the shaping of all of that work, we know getting it right is going to be so important to whether it, in fact, becomes as safe and as encouraging and as sustainable for women to enter and maintain this career as it possibly can.

So, I hope you are ready to put in some good work on this but also ready to experience a very rewarding, a very rewarding, set of outcomes. Because I think years from now, we'll be able to look back and point to the work you did here as part of how the 2020s became a turning point where the US started to make major improvements for women in trucking.

Last thing I want to say: making the trucking industry better for women is part of making it better for everybody. When women succeed, the entire sector is better off. I have heard it often said that if you can address the impact of issues on whoever faces the biggest barriers, that means you've found solutions for everyone else, too, and I think that's going to be true here.

So, with this Women of Trucking Advisory Board, we are at a table that did not exist before. You have stepped forward in a competitive process and taken a seat at that table. And now we are going to be counting on your voice, your expertise, your perspective, your honest and candid deliberation, and your hard work.

So, thank you in advance for all of that. Thank you for answering this call to public service. And I'm really looking forward to working with you in the months and years ahead.

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