Hawley, McConnell in GOP standoff over nominees

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) isn’t backing down from his standoff with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) over two McConnell-backed nominees to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Hawley is standing firm despite growing pressure from Senate GOP colleagues, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), the senior Republican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, who want to fill the GOP vacancies on the two agencies. 

Hawley is holding up Andrew Ferguson, McConnell’s former chief counsel, who is nominated to serve on the FTC, and Todd Inman, a former McConnell campaign aide, who is nominated to the NTSB.  

Inman also previously served as a chief of staff to former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, McConnell’s wife.  

McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tried to confirm Ferguson and Inman to fill Republican vacancies on the two agencies before Christmas, but Hawley blocked them.

Hawley in a Dec. 20 letter to McConnell said the nominees needed more vetting. 

“If Republicans are planning to install dozens of Biden nominees for positions across the federal government — without a vote — in exchange for just a handful of our own selections, I want to be sure that we get our nominees right,” Hawley wrote.  

The Missouri senator held up the nominees after he blamed McConnell for stripping an amendment he sponsored from the annual defense authorization bill that would have expanded and extended the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to cover individuals and families around St. Louis exposed to improperly stored nuclear waste left over from the Manhattan Project.

A month later, two vacancies on the five-member NTSB and the lame-duck status of NTSB board member Thomas Chapman — an appointee of former President Trump whose term expired at the end of December — are coming under increased scrutiny after a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines flight at 16,000 feet earlier this month.

One Senate GOP aide said the NTSB is being stretched thin by having to respond to the Alaska Airlines accident, which required Chair Jennifer Homendy to travel to Portland, Ore., earlier this month to oversee the investigation.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who battled Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) last year over his holds on more than 300 military promotions, expressed frustration over how long it is taking to confirm nominees to key aviation oversight positions.

“I pay very close attention to the issue, because aviation accidents in my state are way higher than in any other state for a whole host of reasons. So having the key safety team in for aviation is really important for Alaska,” said Sullivan, a member of the Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the safety board. 

“This is another near-miss. No one died, thank God, but we’re kind of whistling past the graveyard,” he said of the Alaska airlines incident, which resulted in the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 9 fleet.

“What I’ve said repeatedly on aviation safety is that is one critical area where we have to be proactive,” he said. “There will be a million calls for reforms if there’s some kind of disaster where people die. That’s not the way we should work.” 

Sullivan expressed exasperation over how long it’s taken to approve the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization and confirm Michael Whitaker to head the agency. 

“I have been one who’s been really pushing FAA reauth. The FAA administrator took way too damn long for that to happen,” he lamented.  

Cruz, the ranking member on the Commerce panel, is calling for both Inman and Ferguson to be confirmed quickly. 

“I think it’s certainly important to fill the position. I think Mr. Inman is a good nominee. The Commerce Committee voted him out with strong bipartisan support, and so I hope the Senate moves swiftly to confirm him,” Cruz told The Hill. 

“The NTSB has a critically important responsibility, and it has a good record of taking its responsibility seriously, focusing on evidence and facts and determining the causes of sometimes fatal accidents, which can be critically important to protecting the safety of the traveling public,” he said. “Ideally it would be at a full complement, and I think it is better when you have bipartisan representation on commissions and boards that are structured to include that.” 

Cruz also made a pitch for the Senate to get moving on Ferguson’s nomination to the FTC, arguing that another Republican is needed on the five-member agency to counterbalance Chair Lina Khan, a President Biden appointee and critic of the tech industry.   

That agency is currently missing two commissioners.  

“I think that Andrew Ferguson is a terrific nominee. I think it is very important that he be confirmed and confirmed promptly. He is extremely well-qualified, and the FTC is an agency that’s out of control,” said Cruz, who noted that before coming to the Senate he headed policy planning at the FTC.

“Sadly, under Joe Biden it has become partisan; it has become radicalized. There are zero Republican commissioners, and Lina Khan has abused her power and one of the consequences is morale at the FTC has plummeted,” he said.  

Hawley met with Ferguson and Inman last week but still has concerns.  

“For both of them, we had good substantive talks — lengthy talk with both. I think the next step in this process is I have a series of questions that I put to them that I’d still like to see answered,” he said Monday evening.

Hawley said he didn’t get the chance to vet the nominees’ views on key policy issues because he doesn’t sit on the Commerce Committee.

“I said to them, ‘I don’t sit on those committees.’ So this was the first chance I had to talk to them and the first chance I had to ask them questions in person and in writing. So I’m committed to the process here. Let’s continue to follow it,” he said.  

He said he asked Inman, the NTSB nominee, at length about how he would handle the Alaska Airlines accident.  

Hawley said “it’s important” that the Republican nominees be “good policy choices” and not primarily guided by political patronage.  

“I want to be sure they are actually folks who are good on policy,” he said. “This doesn’t seem to be much of a priority for our leadership, because I’ve gotten absolutely zero outreach from the Republican leader on this. So that tells me that this is not a big deal to them, at this point.” 

Meanwhile, when asked about his latest efforts to get radiation compensation for his constituents from the St. Louis area, Hawley says he remains very focused on getting that done.

“We are continuing to build support for it. Listen, this is my absolute top legislative priority. I am not willing to just watch it expire, and it’s expiring soon,” he said.