“Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes,” Duffy explained at the time. “But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair. The program also hurts small businesses in New York that rely on customers from New Jersey and Connecticut.”
Sean Duffy’s regulatory reform led to changes from American automakers, with Ford Motor Company altering its production to make more affordable gas-powered trucks — a move that won praise from Senator Marsha Blackburn (R., TN.) who told the Washington Reporter at the time that “President Trump has taken decisive action to reverse these harmful policies, and I’m pleased Ford is listening to their customers and giving them what they want by changing the EV factory at BlueOval City into a truck factory that will make gas-powered trucks Americans can afford.”
Another program that Duffy targeted is how blue states like Newsom’s California and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D.) New York account for roughly half of the non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that were issued in America, many of which have gone to illegal immigrants who have killed Americans in tragic car crashes.
“I can’t get in their heads as to why they would allow individuals to get these licenses, especially when they’re not well-qualified,” Duffy told the Washington Reporter. “But it’s what’s happening.” Duffy explained that the federal government has a role to play because “you don’t just drive in New York if you get a New York commercial driver’s license. You drive around the country.”
“If you are from my home state of Wisconsin,” he added to the Reporter, “and you think this doesn’t impact you, it does, because the drivers with these licenses, these unqualified drivers, operate in every single state, and so everybody is at risk in the country, which is why this is a federal issue, and that is why we take it so seriously.”
Due to his department’s findings, Duffy moved to withhold almost $100 million from New York if the state continues to issue CDLs to illegal immigrants. He also said New York should revoke every illegally issued license.
Amid Duffy’s work on safety and efficiency, he gave bonuses toAmtrak’s union employees. “There was a bonus structure in place for the [Amtrak] executives, and the top executives agreed to give back half of their bonuses, and then the next tier of executives are giving back part of their bonuses as well, 40 percent,” Duffy told the Reporter. “That gave us $18 million to then give a little Christmas gift back to the transit workers, so they are going to get $900 as part of a bonus for doing great work keeping our rail working and operating really well.”