Secretary of Transportation Hearings

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• National Motorist Association's Jay Beeber on the Secretary of Transportation hearings 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common The Youth Panel consent breaking down the world's nonsense about.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
How American common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Will see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston dot com.
This is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by
viewind dot Com.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
I might as well open up today talking about the weather,
because the weather is going to be the big story.
So if you aren't already talking about it with your
friends and your coworkers and your neighbors, you probably will
before the weekend is over, that's for sure, because we've
got a winter storm that's on the way, a legitimate
winter storm, you know, the kind of thing that happens
up north, you know, where you get one to three

(00:53):
inches of snow. I guess there's some projections, you know,
from some of these not all weather people, that goes
through to five inches of snow. I don't know that
anybody knows for sure exactly because you don't really know,
you know, especially being on the Gulf, we really don't
know how much of it's gonna be snow, how much
is going to have any freezing rain or ice mixed
in with it, but safe to say any amount of snow,

(01:16):
including a dusting of snow, and all hell breaks loose.
So it's it's not going to be a situation where
you're going to want to be driving probably Monday night
and Tuesday for sure. And I guess if timing, you know,
is good for anything, this is probably good timing because
Monday is Martin Luther King Junior Day, and that's a

(01:38):
day off for a lot of people, so there'll be
fewer people on the roads to begin with. It's also
day off for a lot of the school kids, so
the school buses won't be out there. And then Tuesday,
I'm guessing if we get what they're saying, we're going
to get the close the school the schools early. So
if you work for the public school system, you're looking

(01:58):
at not only having said Saturday, Sunday and Monday for
MLK Junior Day, but also Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, So that
that that just all of a sudden became the better
part of a one week vacation. We don't get that
very often. Oh, I was teasing about it this morning.
I mean, maybe I should really do it. If I
were to put, I have a genuine snow shovel. This

(02:21):
is a snowshovel I have taken with me all the
way from from my my home state of Michigan here
to Texas and and stops in between. And every stop
I've made in between has been further and further to
the south, because that's that's obviously, this is where I
want to be. And I really never thought that bringing
the snow shovel would be something I would actually need,

(02:43):
So I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
I've never used it here in Texas because the only
snow that I've dealt with was, you know, melted away
pretty quickly, and it was it was not very much
of it. But if you put the combination of the
really cold weather and and snow, and I might actually
have to get out there and shovel snow. But I'm wondering,
should I rent this thing out or should I just

(03:06):
like put it for sale on eBay, have an e
Bay auction or something, and and and see what the
highest bid could possibly be. Maybe maybe it's worth my
while to sell the snow shovel. I might be able
to get top dollar. I might never never, it may
never be more valuable here in Texas again is it's
going to be coming up Monday night and Tuesday. But
again we'll worry. We'll worry about the weather when we

(03:28):
worry about the weather. I saw this story, I thought
i'd share this with you because I think this is interesting.
State farm insurance, State farm Insurance, they weren't a lot
of advertising. I think maybe one of the reasons that
people got upset, especially in California, when state farms started
pulling out, is because, you know, they see all the

(03:51):
commercials that they do. You know, the jake from state Farm,
you know, the jingle like a good neighbor's state farmer
is there? That that that kind of stuff, and they
and they say, well, listen, if you're such a good neighbor,
and if you have all this money to advertise, why
are you pulling out here? Why aren't you insuring us anymore?
And the fact of the matter is that, yeah, they

(04:11):
spend a lot of money advertising, but they generally get
a good return on that, and you don't get a
good return on something like a you know, one hundred
and fifty billion dollar wildfire, which they're still going to
have expenses for. There are still people in California impacted
by the wildfires that have still have State Farm insurance

(04:34):
that they're gonna have to pay out a claim on.
In fact, I think I saw where they've had about
sixteen hundred, which is not a lot, but still sixteen
hundred homeowners who still have State Farm coverage that have
lost their homes. So you take sixteen hundred homeowners and
multiply times, you know, three million dollars of what the

(04:55):
average price is. I mean, we're talking about a pretty
significant chunk of change. And of course, we they have
all kinds of cars that are burned out as well,
and they've kept their auto insurance going there, so they're
still going to be having a lot of liabilities. Anyway,
I think State Farm understands they have a bit of
a public relations problem in California right now, so they
have decided that they're going to be making some donations

(05:19):
and they're going to spend money on trying to impact
people impacted by the southern California wildfires rather than spend
money on Super Bowl ads. I don't know how many
they're planning to run, but one thirty second spot during
the Super Bowl adds up to like seven million dollars,
so you can see why they might not want to
be spending that right now advertising when maybe they want

(05:42):
to avoid the image that they have more money to
spend on advertising than they do on the people who
have lost their homes. I thought that was an interesting
move by them, and what more for you for this
segment here, I want to bring up to date on
this one because we brought it up yesterday and it's
a story worth sharing again. The canine Rocky, the he uh,
you know who's working for? Working for the p D,

(06:04):
you know, going through I don't was he with. I
assume it's you know, Hi S, you know, the Houston
Police Department. I assume that's who Rocky was working for.
Rocky got shot a couple of times, and it's going
to be fine. He's going to survive. I mean, the
whole story is just kind of miraculous here that there
was a Department of Public Safety helicopter that just happened

(06:24):
to be in the area, that they managed to land
in a congested area, They got the dog quickly to
the animal hospital, they performed surgery right away, and now
it looks like he's going to be okay. Here is
the report the updated report on what's going on with
Canine Rocky from our television partner KPRC two.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
There was two are an entrance wound and an exit
wound on the right side, right behind the john line,
kind of the neck, and then through the shoulders.

Speaker 6 (06:53):
Narrowly missed his fine, which is amazing.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
The hand of God was there and directed that bullet
away from all those vital organs.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
It's incredible news.

Speaker 7 (07:03):
And what's even more incredible is that Canine Rocky has
a very good chance of returning to full service.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Duity.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
Think about that being shot three times, once in the
nose and then twice in the shoulder and chest area,
nearly dying being rushed here, everything went right for Canine.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Rocky, I asked the veterinarian.

Speaker 7 (07:21):
I said, hey, if that helicopter wasn't there, let's just
remove that helicopter from this situation. What would the narrative
of this story be? He said, it would be one
hundred percent different. There's no doubt about it. This is
a situation of everything going right during a situation where
everything was going wrong. When you look at it, it was
such a tragic situation. But Canine Rocky, according to his

(07:41):
handler from the US Marshall Service.

Speaker 6 (07:43):
He saved at least four lives.

Speaker 7 (07:46):
And these pictures from inside the hospital from last night,
these are tragic. These are pictures that were taken just
in case Canine Rocky didn't survive.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Okay, think about that.

Speaker 7 (07:56):
Those were pictures just in case this story would have
been different. At this point, they were stabilizing Rocky. It
was this morning that they performed surgery to repair that
damage to his nose. Actually, the veterinaria officials here saying
that they actually did a little bit of plastic surgery
to make it look like it used to, like a
regular dog's nose. But what's incredible is just less than
twenty four hours after a dog was shot three times,

(08:19):
canine Rocky, he's a resilient fellow. He was up, he's
walking around and he's eating.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
He's up, walking around, eating, having a good old time
being a dog. Now, this whole thing though about him,
you know, going back into duty. I mean I realized
that Rocky can't talk, But you were wounded in service.
Shouldn't that be an option to just lead a dog's
life from here on out, you know, versus going back

(08:44):
into service in a very very dangerous business. Wasn't that
crazy plastic surgeon? They had plastic surgery on his nose? Yes, right,
dog got a nose job. Pretty amazing stuff. All Right,
we're gonna take a little break back with more in
a moment, Jimmy Bart show. Here a name of nine
fifty KPRC. All right, more hearings. More great audio from

(09:17):
hearings to share with you on this Friday. I love
it and the and the more in your face the art,
the more I like it. So there's certain people I
look for and Senator Josh Hawley never disappoints. This has
to do with the Lake and Riley Act. The Lake
and Riley Act, basically, in the nutshell, provides for the

(09:39):
potential deportation and holding in jail illegal immigrants who are
accused of crimes. Right now, if you're an illegal, which
in and of itself is a crime, if you're an illegal,
they can let you go. The killer of Lake and
Riley had been busted for shoplifting and had been processed

(10:07):
and was let out of jail. So if he had
been held in jail awaiting the shoplifting trial, then he
would not have had the opportunity to kill Lake and Rilly.
The Democrats don't like the soft on crime. Democrats do
not like the Lake and Riley. The vast majority of
them have voted against it so far, and if it

(10:31):
ultimately gets past it's going to be because of Republican votes.
Just a handful of Democrats have supported this. Senator Josh
Holly had a hearing. A Democrat witness was called into
the hearing. You see, if I can get this guy's
title right, his name is Adam Isaacson. He's Director for
Defense Oversight at the Washington Office of Latin America, whatever

(10:57):
the heck that is. He obviously is very very pro immigrant,
including illegal immigrant, and he and Senator Hawley had a
good old time.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Here we go.

Speaker 8 (11:06):
Thank you, miss Fairman, thanks for calling this hearing. Mister Isaacson,
if I could just start with you. In March of
twenty twenty four, you wrote, the murder of a nursing
student in Georgia has a lot of people on the
right talking about migrant crime like it's an actual issue.

Speaker 6 (11:24):
That'd bee Lincoln Riley. You were talking about, Lincoln Riley
was an unusual case.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (11:29):
Here, let's let's have a look.

Speaker 8 (11:32):
Here'slake and Riley yes, her murder, her horrific murder at
the hands of this illegal migrant who was also unlawfully
paroled in the United States.

Speaker 6 (11:42):
Her death not an actual issue. It's a tragedy, but
not an actual issue.

Speaker 9 (11:46):
Migrant crime is much less of an issue than US
citizen community crime.

Speaker 8 (11:50):
Not an actual issue. Those are your words, her death
not an actual issue. I just want to get no.

Speaker 6 (11:54):
You say, of course it's an issue. It's a tragedy.
So what do you mean by your post?

Speaker 8 (11:59):
It's not an actual issue, meaning we shouldn't be paying
attention to it. Sent its wasting its time this week
on the Lake and Riley Acts that would address the
circumstances of her murder.

Speaker 6 (12:08):
What's your advice to us? We just discontinue those proceedings now.
I think the Lake and Riley Act could do a
lot of harm. It would It would allow.

Speaker 9 (12:17):
Me to say, oh, this person shoplifted, and that would
be enough probable cause to get somebody.

Speaker 6 (12:22):
To pour Interesting you're here.

Speaker 8 (12:23):
You were who invited you to this committee hearing today,
mister Aikson, the Minority Party. Yeah, it's interesting you're here
as a spokesman for the Minority Party.

Speaker 6 (12:34):
I just want to make sure the record's clear on this.

Speaker 8 (12:37):
The spokesman for the Minority Party is advising the Senate
that the Lake and Riley Act is a bad idea
and we ought to stop it. The spokesman for the
minority party is saying that Lake and Riley's death and
migrant crime is not an actual issue. I can't, frankly,
I said believe that. I AMPERI you said it's not
an actual issue. I regulate Riley's death was not. You

(12:57):
said that murder nursing student in Georgia has a lot
of people on the right talking about migrant crime. You
put it in quotation marks. We're quotes like it's an
actual issue. She's dead because of migrant crime. Right, Well,
let's try something else here.

Speaker 6 (13:13):
Do you know who this is? Do you know who
this young man is?

Speaker 3 (13:16):
I do not.

Speaker 8 (13:17):
Travis Wolfe, twelve years old from my state, murdered by
an illegal migrant who was also, like Josey Abara, illegally
parolled by the last administration.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Uh huh.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
And I mean, I'm sure the examples just kept on coming,
but they're not going to have any luck convincing some
of these progressives that we need to start getting tough
on illegal immigration.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
It is.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
It's going to be an uphill battle at all times.
The Republican Party is in power at this point in time,
so they're going to have to do as much with
it as they possibly can in order to try to
prevent these things from happening in the future. All right,
what are some other hearings. Oh, here's one. Oh, this
is fun. Senator Bernie Sanders was who is he talking to.

(14:12):
He's talking to the Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessart, and
he wants to talk to the Treasury secretary about oligarchies.
You know, oligarchies, you know government that's that's basically run
by the rich. Because you know, Bernie course is a socialist,
and he thinks that it's very, very bad that we

(14:35):
have so many rich people in this country and we
have a disparity of income, and that he he took
President Biden's warning during his farewell address very seriously that
the United States could become an oligarchy rison its way
to becoming an oligarchy, and he wanted the Treasury Secretary
nominee to tackle that question. Let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 10 (14:56):
When you have a small number of multi billionaires who
have enormous economic, media, and political power. Would you agree
with President Biden who last night stated, and I quote
and oligaki is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power.

Speaker 6 (15:18):
And influence that threatens our.

Speaker 10 (15:20):
Entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms.

Speaker 6 (15:24):
End of quote.

Speaker 10 (15:25):
That's what President Biden said last night.

Speaker 6 (15:27):
I agree with him.

Speaker 11 (15:28):
Do you the three billionaires who you listed that all
made the money themselves? Mister Musk came to the country
as an immigrant.

Speaker 6 (15:43):
I understand that.

Speaker 10 (15:44):
But what I'm asking you is when you have a
handful of people like Musk who will soon be a
part of the Trump administration and others, When you have
three people only more wealth than the bottom half of
American society, when these people have enormous influence over the media,
when they spend huge amounts of money being both political

(16:06):
parties through elect candidates. What Biden said last line is
we're moving toward an oligochy. I'm asking you that question.
Do you think to get how they made their money?
Do you think that when so few people have so
much wealth and so much economic and political power, that
that is an oligarchic form of society.

Speaker 11 (16:24):
Well, I wouldn't note that the President Biden gave the
Presidential Metal of Freedom to two people who I think
would qualify.

Speaker 6 (16:32):
For his oligarchs.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, oh, you mean like George Sorows. Yeah, George Soros.
He's not a threat to democracy, right sees, he doesn't.
Bernie doesn't have a problem with the progressive billionaires. He
just has a problem with moderate or conservative billionaires. That's

(16:57):
who he has a problem with. And he has a
problem with the Elon Musk because he knows that Elon
Musk and the fact Ramaswami are coming after, you know,
are bloated federal government to cut to cut things back,
to cut things down to size. That's the only reason
why he has a problem. You're worried about an oligarcky.

(17:19):
I don't think Bernie Sanders was worried about an oligarchy until,
you know, until he saw some of these you know,
some of these people who are cooperating with the left,
like Mark Zuckerberg in that funny how Mark Zuckerberg. You know,
they they're they were leaving him alone on the left.
And now that he is pledged to taking a free
speech pledge, and you know, he's realizing he's working with

(17:40):
a Republican government. Now now they're after him. Now, okay,
all right, and then one more to share with you
because it's craziness.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
That is the the nomination of Energy secretary for Energy
secretary was being questioned. His name is let me find
his name here, Energy Secretary Chris Chris Wright. That's who
it is, being asked by Hawaii Senator Herona you have

(18:09):
some really strange questions in his confirmation hearing.

Speaker 12 (18:14):
Part of my responsibilities as a member of this as
well as all my other committees, I asked the following
two initial questions to ascertain the fitness of the nominee
for the job. So I ask you, since you became
a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for
sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or
assault of sexual nature?

Speaker 7 (18:35):
I have not.

Speaker 12 (18:36):
Have you ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement
relating to this kind of conduct?

Speaker 6 (18:41):
I have not.

Speaker 11 (18:42):
Oh.

Speaker 6 (18:42):
The Washington Post.

Speaker 12 (18:43):
Reported that in April twenty twenty four, Donald Trump told
a group of about twenty four oil executives at mar
A Lago that they should raise one billion dollars for
his campaign, which would be a deal given his commitment
to reversing environmental regulations, expanding oil and asked leasing on
federal land and approval of natural gas exports. Did you

(19:05):
attend that meeting at mar Largo?

Speaker 13 (19:08):
I was at a dinner with President Trump and Marlago
in April. Quite a bit different than what you just described,
but yes, I was at a dinner.

Speaker 12 (19:18):
Well, it was reported that he talked about a one
billion dollars Do you think that it was appropriate for
the President to even put forth the possibility of such
a deal.

Speaker 13 (19:30):
I was at the dinner and the President put forward
no such deal.

Speaker 6 (19:35):
That's not I was reported.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
It's not what was reported reported by who? And is
it just me or or I understand that she asked
the sexual harassment questions out of everybody that she interviews,
Basically those two questions. I wonder if anybody's ever said
yes to the first one, If you ever made an

(20:01):
unwanted request for sexual services? Is there a man living?
There might be a few, but they're not a whole
lot of men. I don't think that haven't tried to,
you know, have sex with somebody, only to be shut
down and told no. Is that in my technical definition?

(20:21):
That would be an unwanted sexual advancement, right when you
try to get busy with somebody and they say no.
So most men are guilty of that first offense if
that's the case. But hey, if no means no and
that's the end of that, then what's the problem. Okay, Anyway,
I don't want to get too far off track. Stick around.
We have another potential energy is not energy but transportation

(20:45):
nominee Sean Duffy. He's been having his hearings as well.
We're going to talk to somebody who knows a little
bit of something about what it takes in order to
maybe be the Transportation Secretary. So stand by with more.
Jay Bieber will join in just a moment. We'll talk
about the nomination process for Seawan Duffy in just a
moment here on AM nine fifty kPr seeing the Jimney

(21:08):
Barrett Show.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
All Right, we have Seawn Duffy.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
He has been nominated by President Trump to be Transportation Secretary.
He's having his hearings this week. He got quizzed a
lot about, you know, rebuilding some of the infrastructure that
has been laid waste to and in places like North
Carolina from Helene, and whether or not he felt there

(21:51):
was a double standard in how the victims of Helene
had been treated versus what's been going on in California
with the wildfires. Jay Beaver, just the executive director of
policy at the National Motors Association. Let's start with that, Jay.
There's a lot of infrastructure that got damaged to North Carolina,
and the government response that's been pretty slow, hasn't it.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (22:13):
Unfortunately it has this really kind of tragic you know,
I don't.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Know why they would.

Speaker 9 (22:19):
Maybe there's just not as many voters there, and maybe
they're more rural folks. I'm not quite sure, but but
you know, when you got rich people in Malibu and
Pacific places falls as late losing their homes, maybe that's
what gets the attention.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
In the news. Yeah, you're probably right about that.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
So, you know, you represent motors of all kinds, regardless
of political affiliation.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
Is there something, absolutely?

Speaker 4 (22:45):
Is there something we all have in communist motors here
that we all want. I guess we all want to
drive on better quality roads. You know, we're lucky here
in Houston. We don't have the winter weather that they
have up north, although we are getting some winter weather
at the beginning, at the beginning of this next week.
It is an expensive proposition to build a road, any idea.

(23:06):
What does it cost to build a mile of road
these days?

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (23:09):
Gee, it's in the millions of dollars. I don't know
that number, but it is. But it's a lot of
money for every mile. Part part of that reason is
because of all the permitting and all the government imposed costs.
It's not the actual cost of the material or even
the workers, although the cost of workers, because in many
places they're government workers. They have to be unionized workers.

(23:31):
You know, there's there's all these reasons why the costs
are so high, but it's very expensive.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, well, well, I know.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
For example, before I came here to Texas, I was
in Virginia and they wanted to expand four ninety and
turn it into an actual expressways. It was basically a
four lane highway going in each direction between the Richmond,
Virginia area and the beach, and they wanted to be
able to turn that into additional highway to alleviate the

(24:00):
congestion on I sixty four, which is the main highway
that goes between Richmond and Norfolk, for example. But the
Army Corps of Engineers got involved, and all these other
government regulations that basically shut the process down or made
it so expensive that they could no longer afford to
do it.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (24:17):
I mean, look, you compare, compare, and contrast that to
places where there's been a disaster like Room ninety five
through Philadelphia with the train with or the truck crash,
and so they bring in somebody, they fix it as
quickly as possible. They can get it down right away,

(24:38):
and they sometimes, depending on the structure of the deal,
they may give them a bonus that they come in
under budget and under cost and they can do it
a lot cheaper. So and they wave all of these
permitting and all all the nonsense and the red tape
that they normally do because it's an emergency and they

(24:59):
have to get it and get that roadway is just
as good as the one that takes you know, two
three years to build.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
Well, if we can eliminate the permitting in emergency situation
and be satisfied with the results, why do we need
to have all that permitting to begin with?

Speaker 9 (25:14):
Because we have to justify government jobs.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
I guess, I guess that's the obvious answer. Isn't then
I don't know.

Speaker 9 (25:22):
I mean, look, we can, but of course, you know,
once the government gets involved, everybody has to have their
fingers in the pie. Everybody has to have their say.
It has to be perfect as far as you know,
every dotting every I and crossing every T and look,
we can shut up. He said this himself. We can
be much more efficient with the money that we have,

(25:43):
and hopefully there will be some streamlining and these kinds
of things, and maybe we don't have to do a
fifteen year environmental study to fix the road if something
happens to it.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
Yeah, I mean, we've kind of been through this in
Houston an I forty five. They wanted to change I
forty five running through downtown Houston and do put some
of it underneath the ground and and and reclaim some
of the some of the land that was being used
in the city for it. And it has been a
I think it's been at least a ten year process
at this point. There's there's got to be a way
to speed these things up. So in addition to to

(26:16):
you know, kind of getting rid of the red tape
and the regulations, what are some of the other things
you would like to see with Sean Duffy's transportation secretary,
what other problems would you like to see him try
to solve.

Speaker 9 (26:28):
Well, I think the big umbrella of all of this
is the idea that the entire DOT and all of
the operating authorities have been infected with this like woke
mind virus, that nobody should be driving a car. So
they think their goal, instead of moving us around the

(26:49):
country and helping us get from point A to point B,
is to get us out of our cars. So a
lot of their rules, policies, ideas things that they're pushing.
They're all about driving less, owning less cars, getting from
point to point A to point B as slowly as possible,

(27:12):
restricting the amount of roadway that's given to cars, not
building new roadways. All of this kind of stuff. It's
in service of the climate agenda, which is we have
to reduce carbon emissions and therefore you can't drive your car.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah. Uh.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
The other the other problem that comes about in addition
to that, seems to me and and it's kind of
a self fulfilling prophecy here they want to try to convert.
They still want to try to convert us away from
gasoline powered cars to electric cars. Electric cars currently do
not pay a gasoline tax for obvious reasons, and that's
that's how roads are funded with the gasoline tax. In

(27:52):
a perfect world, how do we go about funding our
roads if the gas tax is not the right thing
to do. If charge, do you want to charge by
the mile? That part scares me because the government is
going to be tracking eurodometer and not that they can't
do it if they want to, but but that part
kind of scares me a little bit. What about you.

Speaker 9 (28:10):
Yeah, there's no perfect way to do it. The gas
tax is the most efficient way to do it. The
problem is electric vehicles obviously don't pay a gas tax,
but the cars do collect information on when they're charged
and how much electricity they use. So there's a way
to charge people who have electric vehicles based on their charging.

(28:35):
So in the same way that we charge for a
gas tax. It doesn't have to track where you're going
or anything to All I has to do is track,
you know that how much charge you put into the car.
It's very similar. It's just having to charge it after
the fact as opposed to at the pump. Our concern
about vehicle miles taxes is how that could be used

(28:58):
for social engineering. For example, let's say the government wants
you to drive less, which has been the hallmark of
the DOT and the operating authorities. So they give you
arbitrarily a certain number of miles per year that you're
allowed to drive. That'll be the first tier tier of cost.

(29:20):
The next tier, because you've driven too much, will cost
you even more per mile, and then even more per
mile than next tier. And the goal is to make
it so expensive that you don't want to get into
your car. Maybe you ride your bicycle, or maybe you
get onto transit because that's favored way of travel. So

(29:42):
this is our concern about giving the government more power
to tax us. I'm not really thinking it's a good
idea to give the government more power for anything, but
certainly to charge us per mile. There's so many ways
that they can gain this system to try to socially engineer,
and that's what our concern is for the vehicle miles.
For Croppo's tax.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
Yeah, I'm guessing too. One more area of concern, And
we've seen this before in history when we went through
the gas crisis way back in the day, you know,
the air of oil embargo, when we reduced the speed
limits to fifty five miles per hour. Thankfully we're not
We're not there anymore. But I suppose at some point
in time that's our.

Speaker 9 (30:18):
That's what we did, that's our organization. We were the
primary organization to eliminate the fifty five mile an hour
national speed lik.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Thank you for that. By the way, you're welcome.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Yeah, it's the amount of savings by going fifty five
versus going seventy is I think minuscule. The amount of
the amount of thanks to the safety features of most
modern vehicles, I don't think you're any less in any
less danger going seventy than you are going fifty five
miles per hour. Like maybe we're back in the day
and at the end of the day, nobody's going to
go fifty five on an expressway.

Speaker 9 (30:51):
That's true. And the thing about fifty five as a
speed limit is meaningless if if people don't drive the
speed limit, it's not just because they know they want
to ignore the law. It's because it's unrealistic. It's not
the way the roadway was built. And this is very
true of surface streets. So the safest thing is for

(31:13):
everybody on the roadway to be going about the same speed,
even if that speed is a little faster than some
arbitrary number that somebody wants it to be. So the
fifty five mile an hour speed limit just you know,
lowering the seventy. Look, our interstate highway system was built
on the Autobahn as the model, and so it was

(31:34):
built for people to go safely at much higher speeds
than what most speed limits are in most states. Texas
thankfully has some decent and reasonable speed limits. Utah has
an eighty mile an hour speed limit on one of
their highways, or more than one. But you go to
other states where they don't want you to travel as much,

(31:55):
you know, maybe that speed limit is fifty five sixty
five on most of their roadways. Like I come from
New Jersey, there are major highways that where the speed
limit is fifty five miles an hour.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
Still, so yeah, well listen, you know, Rome wasn't built
in a day, and neither were most of our roads.
Jay Bieber, thanks for joining me today. It was a
pleasure to talk to you, sir. I hope you'll get
a chance to do it again anytime. Executive you bet,
Executive director of the Policy at the National Motors Association.
Jay Bieber back with more in the moment Jimmy Barrett Show,
AM nine fifty KPRC. I'm still wondering if we're going

(32:44):
to end up with a big winter storm come Monday night, Tuesday.
I just there's it's kind of funny because I moved it.
I moved here because I didn't want to deal with
that kind of stuff anymore. I thought I was. I
thought I was in a safe zone here in Texas,
in Southeast Texas. I knew if I would we're up
around Dallas, I might still have to deal with a

(33:04):
thing like that once in a blue moon. But I
thought down here in Houston, I'd be fine. Well maybe not,
but I did get a big kick out of this.
Terry Terry Smith, who does whether on the Weather Channel
on our morning showing kt ARE, sent me this list.
I share some of these names with you. These are
great in some states. This one I believe is from Oklahoma.

(33:30):
In some Wichita, I'm sorry, Kansas Wichita. I think it's
chital Kansas. Yeah, they named their snowplows, and I don't
know if they had a contest for this or what,
but here are some of the names of their snowplows.
Aaron Burr as in b r r r Anti Arctica,

(33:52):
baby snowda Betty white out if salt Fitzgerald Frost responder, Uh,
great and powerful plause mister plow. It's pretty common, mister
sand Man, because up north of youst sand I guess
we do too every now and again. Uh snow intil

(34:15):
snow diggity, Uh snow more, mister ice Sky, and the
list and the list goes on and on and on. Oh,
it's amazing. They've got a lot of there's a lot
of names here, so they have a lot of snowplows,
which is something we don't have. We don't have a snowplows.
So if we get h if let's say it's a

(34:35):
word like a worst case scenario, we get like three
to five inches of snow, how long is that until
the I mean, the temperatures start to warm up around
midwek but it's it's gonna take a couple of days
roll that to melt. So it might be you know,
we might not just be looking at a you know,
Monday night, Tuesday, Tuesday night event. We might be looking
at Wednesday, Thursday, maybe in a Friday event that could

(34:57):
be crazy. We might A lot of us might not
be working. I'll probably be working double time if we
have to, because I think we're going to extend our
coverage on ktr H if this turns out to be
a big deal. All right, One more a little story
to share with you before we call it a day
and head into the weekend. And that is coming out
of the Los Angeles Fire Department, where video is turned

(35:17):
up of their deputy chief in charge of DEI Initiatives,
who is a woman who very much looks like a man,
and she basically wants you to know that it's all
about equity and inclusion for them, and that that means
that they have to have women serving in the fire

(35:38):
department that are not capable of all the duties that
the men are too bad for you. Greg Gutfield had
some fun with it.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Trapped in a fire. Don't count on this DEI hire.
Our video of the day comes to us from LA
Fire Department Deputy Chief Christine Larson, who has their equity
in Human Resources Equity and Human Resources Bureau. In a
resurfaced promo video from September twenty nineteen for the Big
Fox Show nine to one one Larson discussed the ideas

(36:11):
that firefighters should reflect the communities they serve, look like them,
and that female firefighters shouldn't have to rescue a man
from a burning building.

Speaker 6 (36:20):
You want to see.

Speaker 14 (36:20):
Somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's
a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you.
It gives that person a little bit more ease knowing
that somebody might understand their situation better because she's strong.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
Enough to do this.

Speaker 14 (36:33):
Or you couldn't carry my husband out of a fire.

Speaker 6 (36:35):
To wish My response to this, he got himself from
the wrong place. If I have to carryhim out of
a fire, God himself in the wrong place.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Now maybe it's me, but every place is kind of
the wrong place when.

Speaker 6 (36:50):
It's on fire. That's why we have firemen.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
But at this chick or a lifeguard, she'd breate men
for not drowning on the sand.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, I mean, I have I have a very much listen.
I I think it's great that we have men and
women serving in our fire departments, as long as the
women can meet the minimum standards that are required out
of firefighters. And I know here in Texas we require
that we're not just hiring women in our fire departments.

(37:20):
To hire women, they've they've got to be able to
carry a certain amount of weight. They have to be
able to carry those axes. They have to be to
be able to work with the hoses. They may not
be as strong as the men are, but they have
to be able to achieve a minimum standard. It's not
just about you know, you know, clicking a button here

(37:41):
or putting a check mark. Yeah, yeah, we hired a
female firefighter. She's not very good and she she she
she's very weak, but hey, she's a girl. It's not
about that. I mean, you still have to have the
basic abilities to do the job, and that's pretty dog
gone important when you're talking about public safety. Hey, listen,
you'll have a great weekend. Keep your finger scross. Maybe

(38:03):
we can wish the snowstorm away. We'll talk to you
Monday morning, bright nearly five am over on news radio
seven forty k t r H. We are back here
at four on AM nine fifty k PRC