In my last post, I discussed the last report on the trend of the auto transport industryThis week, why don’t we take a look at our transportation czar. In the auto transport industry many aspects of the business are contingent upon decisions made by this person. Decisions such as which projects in the transportation sector receive funding, or rather, which projects are most important and are thus worthy of receiving funding. This is an important person for our industry, so lets go ahead and put a face behind the name.

Our current Secretary of Transportation is Ray LaHood. On January 24, he was nominated by president Obama for the position after serving as a representative of Illinois for 14 years. As Obama’s first republican nomination, many have seen his appointment as a mere ploy to demonstrate his bipartisanship. I say this because at the time of his nomination, he served on none of the house committees involving transportation (though he had before in years past). It is the opinion of some that he does not wield much influence in regards to the transportation decisions, many believe that this influence belongs to James Oberstar who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (though this can be argued both ways, I don’t feel the need to go into it). Nevertheless this position is an important one. After all, LaHood leads an agency that oversees 55,000 employees, and a 70 billion dollar budget.