Porcari, Babbitt Face Senate Panel

The president’s choices for deputy transportation secretary, the second-highest job at the Department of Transportation, and for the top slot at the Federal Aviation Administration, go to their Senate confirmation hearings on May 19.

The Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee was slated to question John D. Porcari for the DOT deputy post, J. Randolph Babbitt to be FAA administrator, plus nominees for other posts including Rebecca Blank, tapped by President Obama to be the Commerce Department’s undersecretary for economic affairs.

Porcari has served two tours heading Maryland’s transportation department under separate Democratic administrations, in a state that is involved in every type of freight operation from seaports to international aviation plus major rail and trucking activity.

Babbitt has been an aviation industry consultant at Oliver Wyman Group in recent years, but made a career as a commercial airline pilot and headed the Air Line Pilots Association for a decade.

He is one of several officials with a strong labor background whom Obama has picked for key transportation jobs.

Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.