TRANSCRIPT: Secretary Buttigieg Delivers Remarks After Accepting the National Consumers League’s Trumpeter Award

Washington, DC—After overseeing the U.S. Department of Transportation’s biggest expansion of aviation consumer rights in recent memory, Secretary Buttigieg was honored to receive the prestigious Trumpeter Award from the National Consumer’s League at an event October 15th in the nation’s capital. 

A transcript of his acceptance speech is below: 

Good evening and thank you. Thank to my fellow charter members of the unpronounceable name club, Ken [Biberaj]. Thank you to Sally Greenberg and everyone at the NCL Board, your team for the extraordinary work and for humbling me with this award, and to Susan for hosting us so well. 

You’re always supposed to say you're humble when you get an award, which is ironic because it makes you feel the opposite of humble. But it really is true in this sense to be recognized in the company of the other honorees.

Saru Jayaraman for your extraordinary work in a just and increasingly winning cause. And I will return to my new home state of Michigan with the wind at my back knowing that's been one of your most recent areas of success. And thank you for taking on that work. 

Anna Werner for demonstrating the life changing and lifesaving importance of good reporting and good journalism. Holding companies and public officials accountable in a way that has an enormous impact. 

And I just want to express my appreciation for being recognized by the NCL knowing the tradition that goes back to Jane Addams. To knowing that the likes of the Elenor Roosevelt and Francis Perkins have been part of the ranks of this organization.  

And I would be remiss if I didn't, and there's so many people on the NCL team, but John Breyault spearheads the aviation consumer protection work and gives his time and expertise on our Aviation Consumer Protection Advisory Committee, or ACPAC, for which we are very, very thankful. 

It’s very heavy for me to be here, and it is a surprise. I have to tell you, when I was first told that I was being considered for a Trumpeter Award I thought you got to [crowd laughter] and then I paid closer attention…that's all I'll say about that about that 

Something unclear. To be at this podium actually, because the first time I was in this room, seated at a table, I was part of this program where they pluck out two high school students from each state from around the country, and they send you the Washington. That was 25 years ago, before I even met Ken. And we were given the chance to see Senators and members of Congress. I think we even managed to see a Cabinet Secretary speak.  

And I remember being so intimidated by the flatware. It was like I've never seen so many forks and knives in one place. And a kindly military officer assigned to escort us. And one of them kind of saw my perplexity, and they did explain that you work your way from the outside in.  

And so, it's very strange for me to be at this podium here now. And I think also about what we were doing in that week as students being introduced to the ways of Washington. And a lot of what we were supposed to be doing as students was to understand how government works.  

But I found myself reflecting more and more on why we have government. What is the point of government?  

And I believe that the core function of government is to enhance the freedom of people. 

And there are several means by which good government does that. One of them is by constructing and deploying infrastructure and public resources – that no one person or community could do alone.  

Another part of this by the civil liberties and protections by which government constraints itself from making us less free.  

And then there's the fact, that we the people have given our federal government certain authorities and tools to protect people from any entity, including any corporation, that would otherwise make them worse off and less free. 

This view is the philosophical foundation for our work today at the US Department of Transportation. 

And the effort nationally, has led us to pay a lot of attention to airline travel. 

Let me say that at its best airline travel represents an extraordinary civilizational achievement. The fact that we can be safely delivered anywhere in the world, in a matter of hours. But at its worst, airline travel is maddening. It is one of the great vexations of modernity. All the ways that an airline can fail you. Or worse, mistreat you. 

And I say this as a policymaker and as a passenger. Having composed my notes for what I wanted to say tonight, this morning in Row 23. And I spent part of yesterday morning on my husband's phone in an interaction with the chatbot that resembled a Monty Python retelling. We’ve all been there.  

And I imagine that anybody who's been an airline passenger thinks to themselves, “you know, if I was in charge of transportation…” So, I’m not ideological about this, but I will say that now four years since we got here my colleagues and I have set out to deliver the biggest expansion in airline passenger rights since the deregulated era began. 

Let me also say, I did my best not to let it hurt my feelings when I found in that first year or two that many advocates were perhaps uncertain about my sincerity in that effort. It's fair enough because so many promises have been made in the past, as passengers experienced more and more frustrations and indignities.  

And like so many promises made in this town, too many over the years have not been kept, which spread skepticism. Add to that the fact that much of the work that we set the motion in our first year took time to bear fruit. 

But standing here today, I believe that I can say without fear of contradiction, that we’ve indeed delivered the most significant enhancements to empower airline passengers since the inception of the Department of Transportation, in its current form. 

However, there is much more to be done. 

And so, most of all, I'm here to give you my commitment that we are far from finished with that work. 

Our department has sought to pick up all of the tools and the authorities that we found at our disposal to address persistent unfair and deceptive practices in the industry. And to ensure that airline passengers are treated fairly. 

And much of this work has met furious resistance from the airline industry. 

Still, I continue insisting these improvements are the right thing to do, not just for passengers but for the aviation sector as a whole, we will all be better off because of this.  

So, we took action to support consumers experiencing significant flight disruptions. 

We launched flightrights.gov, a comprehensive resource to compare what benefits and protections each airline provides. And we discovered that the mere existence of that transparency platform, in and of itself, motivated the airlines to change many of their customer service policies without so much as a regulation or enforcement action. 

However, we are also continuing with regulation and enforcement action. This year we issued a final rule on fee transparency, and another requiring that airlines refund your money automatically when they owe you. Because getting your money back shouldn’t be your problem.  

Moving ahead, we proposed a rule to ban airlines from charging junk fees to sit parents next to their children [indecipherable] we’re working to make that the reality. 

We're working on another rule to expand rights for millions of passengers with disabilities who deserve to travel safely and with dignity.  

And we recognize that such passenger rights have long been championed by the National Consumers League and the coalition of the consumer advocates working on airline issues.  

So, I want to thank you for your support, your involvement through the rulemaking process, including again NCL’s participation on our advisory committee, and thank you in advance for all your continued engagement and work. 

Regulations are only as good as their enforcement, so we have also set a new and much tougher standard for enforcement against any airline that violates the law.  

We've issued record fines and secured historic settlements for passengers, making clear that there is a new standard for accountability. For example, the $140 million penalty for Southwest Airlines for their 2022 meltdown is a single action which represents more than the entire cumulative total of what DOT had levied against all airlines in the 20 years before we got here. 

This year, we launched inquiries into the privacy practices the airlines that have a remarkable amount of our data, and we're also looking into whether loyalty rewards programs are delivering the value promised to customers. 

Just about a month ago, for the first time in our Department’s history, we used our authority to secure consumer and community benefits as a precondition for allowing the merger between Alaska and Hawaiian to advance.  

And just today, we have news on the civil rights front, as we finalize enforcement action against Lufthansa over the treatment of Jewish passengers, recognizing that discrimination [indecipherable due to applause]. 

To be clear, because our support for consumers extends beyond the airline sector. 

We have backed the FTC’s efforts to ban junk fees that help protect truck drivers from predatory towing fees. 

We’ve launched an enforcement effort called, “Operation Protect Your Move” to protect families moving into a new home from scammers who charge exorbitant fees while effectively holding your possessions hostage. 

We are requiring better safety technology in cars and heavy trucks and in buses. 

And again, there is much more where this came from, because we believe that safety is the fundamental reason why our department exists. 

And one thing that I know this group appreciates, but I just think bears repeating, is that in a country where we are up in arms rightly – when there is an incident in commercial aviation, where someone could have gotten hurt, we need to be just as up in arms about the crisis of roadway deaths playing out every day in this country. It’s on par with gun violence – 40,000 lives lost. Which means that every 1% improvement in roadway safety saves 400 lives, enough to fill a jumbo jet. We have knocked about three or four precent off of the peak of roadway deaths. We've got a long way to go in this country and I know you will be at the forefront of helping make that happen. 

Just a reflection to close with that's been on my mind in a lot of different ways ever since it started happening – but my husband and I have a son and a daughter – twins, a boy and girl, three years old. And in an experience, I'm sure anyone who is or has been the toddler parent will remember, our days now frequently include a 3:00 AM or so visit from our daughter – she’ll sometimes explain what it is that propelled her out of her bedroom into ours. She doesn't explain it exactly the way I would. She doesn't have language like dreams or nightmares. When a 2 1/2 or 3-year-old says to you, “the dinosaur get me,” you put two and two together. And you put your arm around your daughter, and you say, “I can promise you the dinosaurs not going to get you. You're safe.” I’ll do perimeter check just to make sure. No dinosaur is going to get you on my watch. And it feels good that as a parent, as a dad, to be able to make a promise for your child that you're 100% sure is going to come true with zero effort on your part. 

But of course, the purpose of what we're seeking to do, and the purpose that has animated so much of the good work of the NCL and your allies and those who you recognize at functions like this is, that unlike the case of dinosaurs, we need to protect our children from faulty products, from roadway deaths, from being cheated. That doesn’t happen without doing the work. It takes a lot of work. It takes enormous work. It takes the right combination of patience and impatience. Impatience to press the policy world to get things done. But patience to play the long game. To make sure that it actually happens. 

That is how we keep the promises that are most important for us to make and keep to our children. 

And one of the most important tools we have to do that is the unglamorous realm of policy which you are all so well attuned to. 

The last thing I'll just mention, while I'm very honored to be recognized this way, is that this work that we do, to try to make everyday life better, trying to use the tools, the pullies and levers of our government, to make everything like better for everyone, is of course the work of countless public servants, just a handful of whom are here today. And I'm asking anyone in the US Department of Transportation who is here to stand up. 

Some are appointees of the Biden-Harris Administration, and more are career civil servants and just some of them are with us tonight. All of them deserve credit for the efforts they have mounted the results that they have delivered, the lives that they have changed, and in many cases saved. I'm proud everything that they achieved, and so it's on their behalf that I humbly and proudly at the very same time accept this award. Thank you. 

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