On Sunday, Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that the Biden administration is in active conversations with the CDC about requiring Americans to have a negative COVID-19 test before traveling by plane to another U.S. state.
Buttigieg made his comments during an Axios interview when the Democrat was asked what he thought “of requiring a COVID test before someone flies even domestically?”
Buttigieg to @axios on the prospect of COVID testing for domestic travel: "The safer we can make air travel, in terms of perception as well as reality, the more people are going to be ready to get back in the air."
Still an "active conversation" at CDC.https://t.co/kQy0JxBQyN
— Kyle Potter (@kpottermn) February 8, 2021
Buttigieg: ‘Going To Be Guided By Data, By Science’
“Well, there’s an active conversation with the CDC right now, what I can tell you is this going to be guided by data, by science, by medicine, and by the input of the people are actually going to have to carry this out,” Buttigieg replied.
The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and 2020 presidential candidate continued, “But here’s the thing, the safer we can make air travel in terms of perception as well as reality, the more people are going to be ready to get back in the air.”
Buttigieg also argued that most Americans’ typical work schedule might be permanently changed due to the pandemic.
Buttigieg said we should start looking more closely at different types of transportation like “bikes, scooters, wheelchairs” because “roads aren’t only for vehicles.”
If Buttigieg and the CDC require COVID testing to fly, people won't fly, the airline industry will lay off tens of thousands, and Biden will officially hold the record as the biggest job killer in the shortest time in American history.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) February 8, 2021
‘Mayor Pete’ Defends Keystone Pipeline Cancellation
“Mayor Peter” also defended President Joe Biden recently killing the Keystone Pipeline by executive order.
During Buttigieg’s Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz pressed Buttigieg on that issue, asking, “So for those workers, the answer is somebody else will get a job?”
Buttigieg replied, “The answer is we are very eager to see those workers continue to be employed in good-paying union jobs, even if they might be different ones.”
It’s safe to assume the many Americans put out of work by the Biden administration’s decision to axe the Keystone Pipeline XL might take a very different view.
Several unions have blasted the move.
Even the head of America’s largest labor union, the AFL-CIO, declared his disappointment.
“I wish he had paired that more carefully with the thing that he did second by saying, ‘Here’s where we’re creating jobs. We can do mine reclamation. We can fix leaks. We can fix seeps and create hundreds of thousands of jobs doing that stuff,’” AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka said of the move.