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Floor Speech
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to speak about the opposition to the nominee before us that we are going to vote on soon, Mr. John DeLeeuw. It is not necessarily about Mr. DeLeeuw's qualifications; it is about the dangerous precedent we are making as we confirm someone to replace an independent NTSB board member who was removed by the President without cause, while they are actively challenging this removal in court. And it is about a needless jeopardizing of public confidence in NTSB's critical work, which I will speak about in a minute, particularly as it relates to the House not taking up the ROTOR Act on suspension yesterday, a bill that we passed by 100 votes here in the U.S. Senate.
It has been less than 2 years since this body unanimously confirmed Alvin Brown to be on the NTSB. The Senate's overwhelming support for Mr. Brown should not be surprising. As a former mayor of Jacksonville, FL, and a former senior adviser to the Department of Transportation, Mr. Brown's background and experience qualified him to be on the NTSB.
My colleague Senator Scott of Florida introduced Mr. Brown at his nomination hearing before the Commerce Committee, praising his ``excellent record of service'' and noting that he would ``do excellent work on behalf of the American people in this role.'' Senator Scott's prediction that Mr. Brown would focus on the NTSB and safety-- shortly after he was sworn in, he began conducting critical work on the NTSB investigation into the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which killed six people and caused billions of dollars in damage.
He was also leading the NTSB response to the March 13, 2025, highway accident on Interstate 35 in Austin, TX, that killed 5 people and injured 11 more. But seeking to unravel Congress' will and insert its own will, even though we voted on this gentleman and he is serving the NTSB focusing on safety, the White House basically is trying to remove Mr. Brown and replace him with Mr. DeLeeuw. As I stated earlier, Mr. Brown has filed a lawsuit challenging his removal. This remains in the courts and pending; the Supreme Court is prepared to rule this year on this decision to bring legal clarity to Mr. Brown's case.
So I ask my colleagues, why are we rushing to confirm Mr. DeLeeuw to a seat that isn't even really vacant under current law? Why would we needlessly create confusion, especially when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on this issue very soon? And why would the Senate allow the executive branch to undermine the confidence and the independence of the National Transportation Safety Board?
As we pointed out, moving ahead with this nomination before us--Mr. DeLeeuw's--is especially problematic when the White House has still not nominated a single member of the opposing party to any independent board or commission, including the NTSB. I guarantee you, that is not the way the FTC, the FCC, the NTSB should run. You are undermining the confidence in these Agencies and the fact that we have both Democrats and Republicans who are supposed to serve on them.
This is not about might makes right. This is about policy and expertise and having both Democrats and Republicans on commissions so that you can continue the focus of bipartisan adherence to these principles that each Agency is supposed to profess confidence in and move forward on. So do we want an FTC that is driven just purely by politics, an FCC that is purely driven by the President's will or desire? Do we want an NTSB decided by the President of the United States? I guarantee you we don't because, yesterday, he couldn't deliver a vote on the House floor that would have gotten us the ROTOR Act--100 votes in the U.S. Senate and he couldn't do that. But he is going to tell us over our processes and over historical precedent about how Democrat and Republican nominees should be appointed. He is throwing the Democrats off, appointing his own person, and then basically leaving into question how strong is the NTSB really going to be on safety.
Congress established the NTSB in law as an independent Agency. It reauthorized the Agency as recently as 2024. So, if all of a sudden, everybody here didn't want to have appointments to the NTSB by the normal process, well, you had a big chance to say you didn't like that, but nobody did. In fact, we renewed it, so we should now not be rewarding the President's unlawful removal of Vice Chair Brown by rushing to confirm a nominee in a position that is not really vacant. I call on my Republican colleagues not to go down this path. Instead, uphold the constitutional duty to provide checks and balances and protect the American people.
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