Congress

Trump’s DOT transition team includes officials from his first term

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign has tapped two former Transportation Department officials to help the agency’s transition efforts as he prepares for his second term, Blue Light News has learned.

That includes Skip Elliott, who worked under Trump’s DOT as administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and also as acting DOT inspector general, two former Trump administration officials and a transportation industry official with knowledge of the transition told Blue Light News. They were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Elliott also served as vice president for public safety, health and environment at freight rail giant CSX and before that at Conrail as the director of hazardous materials systems.

“Skip is an honorable and really good man. He still goes back and talks with PHMSA leadership,” one of the former Trump officials said.

Elliott could not be reached for comment.

Also helping the transition at DOT: Brigham McCown, according to the three officials familiar with the transition effort.

McCown served on Trump’s first transition team in 2016, before briefly becoming senior adviser to then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. McCown also served as one of the original leaders in PHMSA during the George W. Bush administration.

McCown did not respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Trump-aligned parents rally behind kids’ online safety rules

Published

5 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Parents’ rights groups aligned with the MAGA movement and other socially conservative groups are imploring congressional leaders to enact strict rules that aim to prevent online dangers for kids.

They join a chorus of more progressive parent and survivor groups urging lawmakers ahead of an upcoming Senate Commerce online kids’ safety markup to enact robust and clear “duty of care” requirements that would legally compel technology companies to prevent harm to children.

In a July 30 letter to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), shared first with Blue Light News, the groups demanded specific standards that would require technology companies to “truly stand with, not against parents.”

So-called duty of care requirements have emerged as a central battleground in negotiations over kids’ online safety legislation. The provision would mandate tech companies to take reasonable steps to prevent and mitigate specific harms to minors on their platforms and would give regulators a legal basis to hold companies accountable if they fail to do so.

“[W]e write as parents, pro-family leaders, survivors, and child advocates to implore you to act in a way that truly empowers parents to protect our children, and to resist the rather loud voices who say that immunity for Big Tech and evisceration of state efforts in this space is somehow pro-parent,” the groups wrote. “It is not.”

They also urged lawmakers to expand on state laws rather than override them. Preemption provisions have become much more broadly unpopular in the year since Cruz tried — and failed — to attach a 10-year moratorium on the ability of states to set their own artificial intelligence laws in the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“States are standing with parents and children,” the letter reads. “Your committee must build on that work, not tear it down.”

The groups signing the letter, led by Institute for Families and Technology, include MAGA-aligned Moms for Liberty, Louisiana Family Forum, South Dakota Family Voice and the Family Policy Alliance, a conservative Christian group influencing state policies.

Cruz this week postponed a broader artificial intelligence markup tentatively planned for next week until September. Instead, next week, he’s going to take up several measures on kids’ safety and chatbots.

Cruz, in an interview Wednesday, did not rule out preemption provisions in next week’s markup, telling Blue Light News, “Those are all active topics under negotiation.”

Spokespeople for Cruz and Cantwell did not return requests for comment.

The letter comes as right-leaning and family organizations have a heightened awareness of kids’ safety around technology. In fact, the issue was a big topic at last week’s SoCon Con, where there were multiple panels and speakers on kids and tech, including one on keeping kids safe and how to “beat Big Tech.”

“This is new substantive engagement that didn’t really exist before,” said a social conservative advocate granted anonymity to discuss private coalition discussions. “There’s this tipping point that is happening where these groups represent large populations at the state level and saying this is an issue that’s important to us and we’re going to engage as family groups.”

Congress

Top senators consider blocking Trump’s grant shakeup in spending stopgap

Published

6 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate leaders are deciding whether to block President Donald Trump from finalizing a plan to put political appointees in charge of approving grants, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins said Thursday.

“I have made very clear that I oppose the new rule,” the Maine Republican told reporters. “So I hope we’ll take advantage of this opportunity to delay it. But that’s up to the leadership.”

Senate leaders are working to finalize a bipartisan stopgap bill to keep federal agencies funded beyond the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated Thursday that he hopes to pass the measure next week.

The South Dakota Republican did not say, however, whether the legislation will stifle the Trump administration’s proposed regulation to do away with the peer-review process for awarding billions of dollars each year to state and local governments, community groups, education institutions and nonprofit organizations.

“There are a handful of issues still under consideration,” Thune told reporters Thursday afternoon. “And I’m hoping that both sides can come together and figure the last couple of remaining issues out.”

Blocking the Trump proposal is among the demands Democratic senators have included in their offers to Republicans in funding negotiations. Every Senate Democrat called earlier this month for White House budget director Russ Vought to rescind the proposal.

Some Republican senators, including Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, have also been publicly supportive of heading off the regulation the Office of Management and Budget is moving to finalize as soon as this summer.

“There have been thousands, hundreds of thousands, of comments against it,” Collins said Thursday, noting that she urged Vought to hold off weeks ago, while Murkowski said that she thinks White House officials “need to pull back” on the plan.

“Everybody’s coming unglued about this,” the Alaska Republican told reporters, noting outrage from nonprofit groups, community leaders and tribal organizations. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”

Democrats are also pushing to use the upcoming funding bill to stop the Trump administration from unilaterally canceling funding Congress has approved and to reverse the cancellation of grants the Trump administration recently admitted in court that it terminated based “solely on the political identity” of the state leaders where the grants went. Republicans rejected Democrats’ calls to do the same on prior bills.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Blanche’s big meeting

Published

7 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met Thursday afternoon with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — the key holdouts on his nomination as permanent AG. A spokesperson for Cornyn and a second person granted anonymity to describe the private meeting confirmed the discussion.

It took place just hours after President Donald Trump indicated he would not give in to demands made by Cornyn and Tillis to modify his May settlement agreement with the IRS — a central demand of the two senators to allow Blanche through the Senate Judiciary Committee.