Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s family road trip is not offensive because road trips are bad. Quite the opposite. The problem is that a Cabinet secretary is promoting a travel project funded by companies his own department regulates and during a time in which Americans are facing surging prices at the fuel pump, as pointed out by Duffy’s predecessor Pete Buttigieg.
Sean Duffy’s Great American Road Trip Raises Fair Ethics Questions
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is criticizing his successor, Sean Duffy, over The Great American Road Trip, a family road trip series tied to America’s 250th anniversary.
I want to be clear at the outset: I am not inherently opposed to Duffy filming a road trip showcasing the beauty of the United States. In fact, I like the idea. America is a stunning country, and I think we often take it for granted. Roads, bridges, highways, roadside attractions, national parks, small towns, diners, monuments, and museums are part of the American travel experience.
Nor am I offended by multitasking. I work a full-time job and run this blog on the side. If Duffy can do his job well, modernize air traffic control, protect consumers, and also appear in a travel series filmed in short windows over several months, the concept itself is not automatically disqualifying.
But the structure of this project raises very fair questions.
Buttigieg: “I Love Road Trips. I Love America.”
Buttigieg appeared on CNN’s State of the Union and was asked by Dana Bash about Duffy’s criticism that the “radical, miserable left” hates his road trip because they do not want people to celebrate America.
Buttigieg responded:
“I love road trips. I love America. I actually took a taxpayer-funded road trip lasting about seven months. It was in Afghanistan. This is something very different. This is not about patriotism. And it is an embarrassment to have him going around saying that a road trip, quote, ‘fits any budget,’ at a time when more and more Americans cannot afford a road trip because of the explosion in diesel prices and gas prices caused directly by the Iran war and by the Trump administration.”
That was a good line.
It was also a useful clarification. Buttigieg was not saying road trips are bad or that patriotism is bad. He was saying the optics are bad when a sitting Transportation Secretary stars in a road trip media project while travel costs are soaring and while the project is funded by transportation-related companies.
That is a fair concern.
Companies Regulated By DOT Helped Fund The Project
According to Politico, The Great American Road Trip was funded through a nonprofit called Great American Road Trip, Inc., with corporate sponsors including companies regulated by the Department of Transportation.
Those include Boeing, Toyota, United Airlines, Shell, Royal Caribbean, and others. Politico reported that sponsors were solicited at tiers ranging from $100,000 to $1 million.
Take off your partisan hats for a moment and just think about that.
Boeing and United Airlines are enough to illustrate the problem.
Boeing does not merely “intersect” with DOT. Its aircraft are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, which sits within DOT. The FAA oversees Boeing’s production quality, aircraft certification, continued operational safety, and corrective actions when things go wrong. After the 737 MAX crashes, the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 door-plug blowout, and years of concerns about Boeing quality control, Boeing is not some ordinary corporate donor. It is one of the most scrutinized companies in the transportation system and one whose future depends heavily on decisions made by agencies inside DOT.
United Airlines is also directly under DOT’s umbrella. DOT enforces airline consumer protection rules involving refunds, fee transparency, tarmac delays, disability rights, oversales, family seating, and unfair or deceptive practices. United also depends on FAA oversight for operations, aircraft maintenance, pilot training, and safety compliance. When a major airline helps fund a project tied to the sitting Transportation Secretary, the question is why any airline regulated by DOT should be anywhere near a media project featuring the person who oversees the regulation.
These are companies with business before the federal government, and in several cases before the very department Duffy leads. That does not prove corruption, nor does not prove Duffy did anything illegal. But it creates an appearance problem that should have been obvious to everyone involved.
DOT Says This Was Cleared
The Department of Transportation has defended Duffy’s participation.
DOT has said no taxpayer dollars were spent on Duffy’s family, that production costs were paid by Great American Road Trip, Inc., and that Duffy and his family did not receive salary or production royalties. Duffy has also said career ethics and budget officials reviewed and approved his participation and travel.
That is important.
If Duffy’s family did not receive compensation, if production costs were not taxpayer-funded, and if official travel was tied to DOT responsibilities, then this is not as simple as “taxpayers funded a family vacation.”
But that still does not fully answer the concern.
There is a difference between “technically cleared by ethics officials” and “wise.” A Cabinet secretary should be very careful about letting regulated companies fund a project that prominently features him and his family, even through a nonprofit intermediary.
The issue is whether regulated companies received access, goodwill, branding, or proximity to the secretary in exchange for large contributions to a project centered on him…again, a fair question and not a partisan one.
DOT’s Response To Buttigieg Was More Political Than Persuasive
DOT’s response to Buttigieg-style criticism veered into politics rather than answering the ethics question.
A DOT spokesperson said:
“These are the same people who waged a war on fossil fuels, pushed gas to over $5 a gallon, and forced American families into expensive electric vehicles.”
That is a political answer, not an ethics answer.
It may thrill partisans, but it does not resolve the core question: should companies regulated by DOT be sponsoring a project starring the Transportation Secretary and his family? It also does not resolve the question of whether the timing is right. As American finds itself again involved in a foreign conflict that has led to fuel prices doubling, it’s fair to ask whether this becomes a “let them eat cake” moment.
Those questions remains regardless of whether you like Buttigieg, Duffy, fossil fuels, electric vehicles, or road trips.
Duffy also framed criticism of the project as an attack on patriotism, writing that the “radical, miserable left” hates the project because it is too “wholesome,” too “patriotic,” and too “joyful.”
Again, that misses the point.
The concern is not that anyone opposes Mount Rushmore, the Liberty Bell, our national park system, or the small towns across the Fruited Plain that are the backbone of our Republic. The concern is whether Boeing, United, Toyota, Shell, and other transportation-adjacent companies should be helping fund a project that revolves around the agency that regulates them.
I Am Not Opposed To The Road Trip Itself
I just want to repeat once more that I actually think the underlying idea is fine.
America is beautiful. Families should see it. Road trips are a wonderful way to experience the country, and there is nothing wrong with tying that message to the 250th anniversary of the United States. A Transportation Secretary promoting road travel and domestic tourism is not inherently scandalous.
And to Duffy’s credit, he appears to be taking air traffic control modernization seriously. That is not a small thing. The ATC system badly needs investment, staffing, and modernization, and if Duffy can move that ball forward, he deserves credit.
But I would also like to see Duffy spend much more time on consumer protection from airlines and hotels. DOT should not be pulling back from rules that make fees transparent, protect passengers during controllable delays, and hold airlines accountable when they fail consumers.
That is the job too and one that Duffy has neglected thus far. If Duffy can do that job and film a travel project on the side, fine.
But the project cannot be allowed to look like an influence vehicle for companies under DOT’s jurisdiction. Can’t we all agree on that?
CONCLUSION
Pete Buttigieg is right to raise questions about Sean Duffy’s road trip project, though I would frame the concern less around “how dare he take a road trip” and more around who paid for it as well as the optics of such a project during war time.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating America’s 250th birthday or encouraging families to see the country. There is also nothing inherently wrong with a Cabinet secretary promoting domestic travel if he is still doing his job.
But companies regulated by the Department of Transportation should not be sponsoring a project centered around the Transportation Secretary and his family. That is true whether the secretary is Republican or Democrat.
Duffy may have received ethics clearance. His family may not have been paid. Taxpayers may not have funded the production…that all matters. But the sponsorship structure still stinks as does the timing.
The road trip is not the problem. The problem is who’s paying for it.
100%. If Sec. Pete had done this, there’d have been another J6. If MAGA didn’t have double-standards, they’d have no standards at all…
A republican politician on the take??? Shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED.
Tone def… Kinda like taking paternity leave when the entire US ports were shut down during COVID forcing billions of losses on small companies.
Real comparable…who drew the genetic short straw to be your offspring?
Great story and I agree with most of it. Other than the timing issue as American beauty should always be shared, especially on our 250th birthday. Fuel prices have gone up and down since the 70’s and is a separate issue. Showing our great country to people who may never get to see it in person is always worthwhile.
However it’s the wrong family at the right time. Even with the clearances in place, one thing the last 2 Presidents have shown us is personal enrichment and conflicts of interest aren’t a concern to them, their families or cabinet members.
Again, well thought out article Matthew.
This was posted by the OGE five days into 47’s first term-
…executive branch employees are subject to an important set of ethics rules contained in the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch. Underlying these rules is a principle that employees must avoid even the appearance of impropriety. The impartiality rule breathes life into this principle.
Under the primary conflict of interest law, an employee must not participate in any particular matter affecting the employee’s financial interests, and the impartiality rule goes even further by focusing on appearance issues. This rule applies even when the employee is free of financial conflicts of interest.
Briefly stated, the impartiality rule requires an employee to consider appearance concerns before participating in a particular matter if someone close to the employee is involved as a party to that matter. This requirement to refrain from participating (or “recuse”) is designed to avoid the appearance of favoritism in government decision-making.
The rule is not implicated by everyone the employee knows, for example, mere friends and neighbors. Instead, the rule focuses on professional and family relationships. Among others, the rule arises based on the employee’s relationship with any member of the employee’s household, an outside employer, a spouse’s employer, any relative with whom the employee has a close personal relationship, or an outside organization in which the employee is an “active” member. The rule is also triggered by the employee’s relationship with individuals, clients, and organizations the employee has served professionally as an employee, attorney, contractor, etc., in the past year.
Duffy has opened the door here. Will his press conferences now be sponsored by airlines, Boeing and automakers as well? Neutral information will be lost.
I suppose it’s not a technical conflict of interest because the donors don’t know exactly how/on who the money is going to be spent. Certainly the nonprofit wouldn’t be able to promise it would end up involving the Transportation Secretary at the time of the donations. Similarly, Duffy probably isn’t informed in any detail about which company contributed how much. Further, in the case of companies like Boeing, United, or similar, I think it’s safe to say those “big dogs” have no need to “buy access” as they’re already about as close-in as one can get. If they did need to do that, there’s probably more effective means than indirectly funding a filmed road trip series. But, let’s be real, it’s not a great appearance to have regulated entities indirectly funding a discretionary pursuit of the secretary of DOT. I certainly wouldn’t have advised it, had I only been asked lol.
And yes, the timing of the release is terrible. Encourage road trips when gas just shot to north of $4/gallon nationwide…not a good move.