For DeFazio, who underwent back surgery in October, a return to the minority would come at a time of rising partisan and personal rancor in the House. Even as chair he has sparred frequently in public with the committee’s ranking member Republican Sam Graves (R-Mo.) over “green new deal” climate priorities and countless other issues. (The two say they get along well personally.)
DeFazio’s district is large and ideologically diverse, going for Clinton by just 0.1 percentage points in 2016 and for Biden by just 4 points in 2020. DeFazio himself recently faced his toughest race in years, winning with just a five-point margin.
DeFazio’s departure leaves a hole atop the committee, where he has led the Democrats since 2015. He is an undisputed leader on transportation and infrastructure issues and his meticulous, detailed knowledge of often wonky and technically complicated topics will be hard to replace. His departure is also bad news for greens and progressives, who will be hard-pressed to find a successor as enthusiastic about blunting climate change or as well-positioned to do something about it.
DeFazio acknowledged his mixed feelings about leaving “at a challenging time for our republic with the very pillars of our democracy under threat,” but said he had faith that his colleagues and “young Americans who are civically engaged and working for change” will carry the banner.
House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who, like DeFazio has served since the 1980s, said DeFazio’s retirement is “a huge loss for institutional knowledge.”
“He was one of those here who wisely decided to master the details of transportation and his guidance time and again has been essential on these big transportation issues,” Neal said. “The fact that we passed a massive transportation bill for the good of the country can be credited to the massive amount of work Peter DeFazio did.”
Before taking the reins of the full committee, DeFazio served as the top Democrat on four of the committee’s six subcommittees: Aviation, Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, Highways and Transit, and Water Resources and Environment. He has served on T&I since arriving to Congress in 1987 and stepped in ably as Democrats’ leader on the committee following the ousters of his two predecessors on the committee, Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, who chaired the committee for just two years, and another encyclopedic transportationphile, the late Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota.
Strictly by seniority, the next in line for the top Democratic spot, whether as chair or ranking member, is Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who chairs the Highways and Transit Subcommittee. She would be the first woman, the first delegate, and the first Black member of Congress to chair the committee. However, she will soon turn 85 and has yet to announce her intentions for next year.
Another top contender would be Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) who chairs the Aviation Subcommittee, an already top-tier subcommittee whose profile has been particularly elevated over the last few years. With DeFazio, Larsen has led the charge on holding Boeing and the FAA accountable after multiple failures led to the deaths of 346 people in two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Together, Larsen and DeFazio presided over multiple oversight hearings, conducted a massive investigation of their own into the crashes and shepherded a bill to passage that overhauls the way aircraft are certified in the United States.
If Larsen got the top job, that would firmly establish Washington state as a power center for transportation, especially aviation, as Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell heads the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over aviation, rail, vehicle technology, vehicle safety and the TSA.
In his remaining 13 months in office, DeFazio says he will concentrate his efforts on passing the Build Back Better Act, which include key transportation provisions he authored that will make up for where he felt the infrastructure bill fell short.
Alex Daugherty contributed to this report.
