Politics

(Reuters) -Some parts of the U.S. military are preparing lists of weapons programs they have long wanted to cancel in a bid to get ahead of what could be drastic cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Members of DOGE are expected at the Defense Department as soon as Friday, WSJ said, citing defense officials.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said that he had already been in touch with Musk and expressed confidence in the effort to find billions in cost-cutting and to make the Pentagon more efficient.

“There’s plenty of places (at the Pentagon) where we want the keen eye of DOGE, but we’ll do it in coordination,” Hegseth said.

U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier said he expected Elon Musk to find hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse at the Pentagon during an audit that the billionaire will lead.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the WSJ report.

(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s broad assertions of power appear to be advancing an aggressive version of a legal doctrine called the “unitary executive” theory that envisions vast executive authority for a president, setting up potential U.S. Supreme Court showdowns.

The conservative theory’s advocates argue that Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which delineates presidential powers, gives the president sole authority over the federal government’s executive branch. It envisions robust powers even when Congress has sought to impose certain limits, such as restricting a president’s ability to fire the heads of some independent agencies. 

The Supreme Court is expected to be called upon to review at least one key legal dispute over the Republican president’s contentious actions implicating this doctrine, with numerous legal challenges already moving through lower courts. 

Trump’s firing of a member of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent executive branch agency created by Congress, may test the willingness of the nation’s top judicial body to embrace the robust view of the theory that Trump’s administration is expected to present. And the nine justices could be asked to overturn a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent that limits a president’s ability to dismiss certain agency heads.

Under the Constitution, the U.S. government is divided into the executive, legislative and judicial branches – set up in the 18th century to ensure checks and balances within the American system. Advocates of the unitary executive theory argue that presidents legally can remove any executive branch official, including heads of independent agencies, even if such action would violate job protections enshrined in laws passed by Congress.

The doctrine was first popularized four decades ago by lawyers in Republican former President Ronald Reagan’s administration and may be pushed further during the Trump era.

The theory’s view of the president’s removal power has been embraced gradually in recent decades by the Supreme Court, whose current 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump. But it has yet to endorse actions like some of Trump’s sweeping assertions of executive power since returning to office on January 20.

“Trump has claimed the power to dismiss the heads of independent agencies, though Congress has restricted such authority,” University of North Carolina School of Law professor Michael Gerhardt said. “If the court allows Trump to do that, or does not interfere with Trump’s doing that, it will help to cement the unitary theory of the executive into American constitutional law.”

Some scholars said Trump’s more contentious actions in recent weeks were reminiscent of a view he expressed in 2019 during his first term in office when he said: “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

“It does seem to me like Trump has gone beyond that classic understanding of unitary executive theory toward something even more extreme,” New York University School of Law professor Noah Rosenblum said. “Witness, for example, his rejection of Congress’ power of the purse, or his attempt to dissolve an agency that exists as a matter of law.”

Various plaintiffs have challenged Trump’s actions to oust agency leaders, undermine federal workforce protections and dismantle congressionally established agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as the legality of an entity he created that is led by Elon Musk dedicated to downsizing the government.

THEORY GAINS TRACTION

Steven Calabresi, a prominent champion of the doctrine, was working as an assistant to the Reagan administration’s Attorney General Ed Meese when he became interested in the subject. The theory arose from the widely shared view among Justice Department officials at the time that a law passed establishing a special prosecutor to investigate what was called the Iran-contra scandal was an unconstitutional intrusion by Congress on presidential powers.

“The idea of there being a prosecutor in the executive branch who’s independent of the president was contrary to the unitary executive, because we thought the Constitution gave all of the executive power to the president,” Calabresi said.

His interest in the theory was reinforced by his frustrations with civil servants ignoring orders from Meese to grant asylum to people who fled the Soviet Union or China and faced execution if deported – the sort of bureaucratic resistance, Calabresi said, that Trump “now calls the ‘deep state.’”

“I remain very much of the view that Article II does give the president all of the executive power, and I think the president has the ability to control subordinates in the executive branch who are exercising executive power,” said Calabresi, now a law professor at Northwestern University in Illinois. 

Calabresi added that “the core of the unitary executive theory is that the president can fire subordinates in the executive branch.”

But how far does the doctrine go? 

“The core of the theory was that the president could fire officers in the executive branch at will, without any restraint from Congress,” University of Illinois Chicago law professor Steve Schwinn said. “But some advocates picked up that idea, drew on the logic, and used it to argue for more expansive presidential power in general.”

A 1935 PRECEDENT

Trump’s firing of Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board, paralyzed an agency that safeguards the rights of American workers. 

Andrea Katz, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said that “by firing a commissioner whose tenure was protected by a term limit, Trump was essentially breaking a law to trigger a constitutional confrontation.”

Wilcox has argued in a lawsuit that her removal violated a federal law that allows a president to oust a board member only for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. Wilcox’s lawsuit cited the Supreme Court’s 1935 ruling in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

That ruling involved a conservative-majority Supreme Court restraining the actions of a Democratic president, Franklin Roosevelt. It decided that a president does not have unfettered power to remove commissioners of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission after Roosevelt fired an FTC commissioner over policy differences.

The Trump administration has a deadline this month to file a brief laying out its legal arguments in the Wilcox case. 

“The Trump administration will almost surely defend its removals by asking the Supreme Court to adopt a more muscular version of the unitary executive theory,” said Christine Chabot, a professor at Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin.

The Wilcox dispute, Chabot said, is “a perfect test case for the Supreme Court to overrule Humphrey’s Executor.”

Trump’s actions may push beyond the limits of what the doctrine would allow, according to some scholars.

Schwinn, a critic of the doctrine, said that “the Trump administration’s efforts to close entire agencies are the clearest example of a robust unitary executive theory in practice.”

“Congress has the authority to create those agencies, to grant them power and to fund them,” Schwinn said. “The president has no authority to dismantle them without explicit authorization from Congress.”

Peter Margulies, a professor at Roger Williams University School of Law in Rhode Island, said that Trump’s executive orders “double down on the most extreme versions of the unitary executive theory.”

Margulies pointed to Trump’s efforts to fire civil service employees in a manner that seems designed to hollow out the federal workforce. 

“He’s going further than most scholars who endorse the unitary executive, and much further than the Supreme Court,” Margulies said.

Rosenblum said Trump also seems to believe he has “dispensation power,” the power unilaterally to suspend a law.

“Not even the most aggressive theorist of the unitary executive believes that,” Rosenblum said. “The dispensation power was a royal power that the founders (of the country) believed had no place in a republic like the United States.”

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Wisconsin’s top school official faces the first big hurdle of her reelection bid in the spring primary on Tuesday, when she’s running against two challengers in a far different political and electoral environment than she did in her successful 2021 campaign.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly seeks a second four-year term in the nonpartisan role. Looking to unseat her are Jeff Wright, superintendent of the Sauk Prairie School District, and Brittany Kinser, an education consultant and founder of a state literacy initiative.

The top two vote-getters will advance to the general election on April 1, when voters will also decide a competitive race for state Supreme Court. At stake is management of a public school system that includes nearly 900,000 students, 111,000 faculty and staff members, 2,190 schools and an annual budget of roughly $9 billion.

Underly has the backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the state branch of the American Federation of Teachers. The state’s largest teachers’ union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, endorsed Underly in 2021 but opted not to back any candidate this year. The organization’s political action committee, however, has recommended voting for Wright.

Wright ran as a Democrat for the state Assembly in 2016 and 2018 but lost both races with about 49% of the vote. Kinser supports Republican-backed initiatives to fund alternatives to traditional public schools and is running as the conservative choice in the race.

Kinser leads the field in campaign fundraising thanks to a flurry of contributions in January from big-dollar Republican donors. She had raised $316,000 through Feb. 3, compared with $123,000 for Wright and $121,000 for Underly.

In 2021, Underly narrowly topped the seven-candidate primary field with 27% of the vote. Six candidates were aligned with Democrats, but none emerged as the clear alternative to Underly among Democratic voters. That helped the sole Republican-backed candidate that year, Deborah Kerr, to nab the second spot on the general election ballot with 26% of the vote. Underly went on to win the general election that year with 58% of the vote in a one-on-one contest with Kerr.

This year, three candidates are competing for two spots, and the primary has become several contests stuffed into a single race: one between Underly and Wright among Democratic-leaning voters, another with Kinser trying to consolidate enough support among Republican-leaning voters to outperform one or both of her rivals, and another with all three candidates competing for independent and crossover voters to tip the scales in their favor.

With only two candidates this year to potentially split the support of Democratic-leaning voters, Kinser would likely need to far outperform Kerr’s 26% in the 2021 primary to earn a spot on the April ballot, assuming a competitive contest between Underly and Wright.

The primary will be the state’s first election since Republican Donald Trump narrowly won Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes in the November presidential contest. The 2021 contest was held on the heels of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over then-President Trump in Wisconsin and in the Electoral College.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Recounts are not automatic in Wisconsin, but a trailing candidate may request one if the winning vote margin is less than 1 percentage point. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:

The Wisconsin spring primary will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 9 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in the nonpartisan primary for state superintendent of public instruction. It is the only statewide contest on the ballot, although various local jurisdictions will also hold elections on Tuesday.

Any registered voter may participate in the nonpartisan primary for state superintendent.

As of Feb. 1, there were nearly 3.9 million active registered voters in Wisconsin. The state does not register voters by party.

The last primary for state superintendent was in 2021, when it was also the only statewide contest on the ballot. Roughly 326,000 votes were cast in that election, which was about 9% of registered voters and about 7% of the voting age population. About 47% of voters cast their ballots before primary day.

As of Thursday, nearly 90,000 ballots had been cast before primary day.

In 2024, the AP first reported results at 9:09 p.m. ET in the August congressional primaries and at 9:11 p.m. ET in both the April presidential primary and the November general election. The election night tabulation ended at about 3 a.m. ET in both the presidential and congressional primaries with about 99% of total votes counted. Election night tabulation ended at 5:47 a.m. ET in the November general election with about 98% of the total vote counted.

As of Tuesday, there will be 42 days until Wisconsin’s spring election on April 1.

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By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday blocked, for now, U.S. health agencies from enforcing President Donald Trump’s order ending all federal funding or support for healthcare that aids gender transitions for people younger than 19.

U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was appointed by Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, issued the temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit by families of transgender teens and LGBT advocacy groups, lawyers for the plaintiffs announced.

“The president’s orders sought to take away from transgender young people the very care that they, their families, and their medical providers all agree is best for them – medical care that is evidence-based and well-established,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan of Lambda Legal, one of the lawyers, said in a statement.

“But these decisions are for patients, their families, and their doctors to make, not for politicians or Washington bureaucrats.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, a Republican, said in his January 28 order that it is “the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

The order directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to “take all appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.” That could include imposing conditions on healthcare providers receiving any federal funds, which virtually all hospitals do.

The treatments at issue, often called gender-affirming care, include puberty-blocking medication, hormones and sometimes surgery.

In their lawsuit challenging the order filed this month, the families, who are represented by Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, said hospitals immediately began canceling appointments for gender-affirming care in response to Trump’s order, leaving them without access to necessary treatments.

Families said they have had appointments canceled by Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., NYU Langone in New York, Boston Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Richmond in Virginia, which are not defendants in the lawsuit. Some hospitals have publicly confirmed that they have halted gender-affirming care.

The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s order discriminates against transgender people and goes beyond his authority as president. LGBT advocacy groups PFLAG and GLMA are also plaintiffs in the case.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has said in a letter to healthcare providers in New York that withholding services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity was discrimination under New York law.

Republicans in more than half of the 50 states have passed laws or policies that ban gender-affirming care for minors, some of which have been blocked or overturned by the courts. A challenge to Tennessee’s ban has been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a ruling that could determine the legality of such bans nationwide.

The administration of former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, supported access to gender-affirming care for minors. It passed a rule banning discrimination against transgender people in healthcare, which was blocked by a judge last year.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler, Richard Chang and Alexia Garamfalvi)

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By Leah Douglas

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Brooke Rollins, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump and former White House policy advisor who has expressed doubt about climate change, to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Rollins will head an agency with 100,000 employees that oversees farm programs, food benefits, and school meals. Her appointment comes at a time of low farm income, potential cuts to domestic food aid, and an aggressive campaign to reduce the federal workforce led by billionaire Elon Musk.

The Senate voted 72 to 28 to confirm Rollins, after its Agriculture Committee held Rollins’ nomination hearing on January 23 and on February 3 advanced her unanimously.

Rollins spent 15 years as the head of a conservative Texas policy organization backed by the oil industry. Under her tenure, the group produced reports criticizing ethanol and farm subsidies. In her nomination hearing, Rollins said the reports were decades old and did not reflect her current policy positions, and that she supports ethanol.

The American Coalition for Ethanol’s CEO Brian Jennings said in a statement that the group looks forward to working with Rollins on finalizing the 45Z clean fuel tax credit and expanding biofuel infrastructure.

In follow-up questions after her nomination hearing, Rollins was asked by Agriculture Committee ranking member Amy Klobuchar if she believes climate change is a threat to U.S. farmers and ranchers. She replied, “We all know the climate changes throughout the year, but the cause and solutions are not widely understood or defined,” according to a copy of her responses seen by Reuters.

House Agriculture Committee chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson and ranking member Angie Craig both said in statements that Rollins was assuming the role at a critical time for agriculture and they looked forward to collaboration.

Rollins was acting director of the White House Domestic Policy Council in Trump’s first administration, and then led the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned policy group.

The Trump administration’s freeze on most foreign aid and some farm grant and loan programs has led to work stoppages at a network of agricultural research labs and has meant some farmers are not getting expected government payments.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas, Editing by Franklin Paul and Nia Williams)

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By Tim Reid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -All probationary staff at the Office of Personnel Management were fired on Thursday in a conference call and given less than an hour to leave the building in Washington, two sources familiar with the dismissal told Reuters.

About 100 people were on the call inside OPM, the U.S. government’s human resources agency. Staff on probation were told that because they had not taken the Trump administration’s buyout offer, they were being fired, a union source and an OPM staff member said.

(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Ross Colvin)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday rolled out his plan to increase U.S. tariffs to match the tax rates that other countries charge on imports, as he hopes to eliminate any trade imbalances. 

“I’ve decided for purposes of fairness that I will charge a reciprocal tariff,” Trump said in the Oval Office at the proclamation signing. “It’s fair to all. No other country can complain.” 

Trump’s Republican administration has insisted that its new tariffs would equalize the ability of U.S. and foreign manufacturers to compete. 

The politics of tariffs could easily backfire on Trump if his agenda pushes up inflation and grinds down growth, making this a high stakes wager for a president eager to declare his authority over the U.S. economy. 

The tariff increases would be customized for each country with the partial goal of starting new trade negotiations. 

Trump’s proclamation identifies value-added taxes — which are similar to sales taxes and common in the European Union — as a trade barrier to be included in any reciprocal tariff calculations. Other nations’ tariff rates, subsidies to industries, regulations and possible undervaluing of currencies would be among the factors the Trump administration would use to assess tariffs. 

A senior White House official, who insisted on anonymity to preview the details on a call with reporters, said that the expected tariff revenues would separately help to balance the expected $1.9 trillion budget deficit. The official also said the reviews needed for the tariffs could be completed within a matter of weeks or a few months. 

The possible tax increases on imports and exports could be large compared to the comparatively modest tariffs that Trump imposed during his first term. Trade in goods between Europe and the United States nearly totaled $1.3 trillion last year, with the United States exporting $267 billion less than it imports, according to the Census Bureau. 

The White House has argued that charging the same import taxes as other countries do would improve the fairness of trade, potentially raising revenues for the U.S. government while also enabling negotiations that could eventually improve trade. 

But Trump is also making a political wager that voters can tolerate short-term higher inflation levels. 

The Trump team has decried criticism of its tariffs even as it has acknowledged the likelihood of some financial pain. It says that the tariffs have to be weighed against the possible extension and expansion of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts as well as efforts to curb regulations and force savings through the spending freezes and staff reductions in billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative. 

Trump believes his policies would not trigger anything more than a brief bump in inflation. But when asked if he would ask agencies to analyze the possible impact on prices, the president declined. 

“There’s nothing to study,” Trump said. “It’s going to go well.” 

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By Blake Brittain and Brendan Pierson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday extended for one week a pause on the Trump administration’s plan to put thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers on leave while he considers a lawsuit by government employee unions.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington said at a hearing that he was concerned about the safety of USAID workers stationed abroad, and ordered the government to provide more information about what it would do to ensure the safety of any workers placed on leave.

The judge extended his previous temporary order against putting the employees on leave, which had been set to expire this Friday, until next Friday, February 21, saying that would give him more time to consider the unions’ motion for a broader and longer-term order.

The unions are asking him not only to block the administration from putting workers on leave, but to halt a wide range of actions it has taken to scale back the agency’s funding and operations while the lawsuit goes forward.

Nichols expressed skepticism of the unions’ case, however, saying that government workers who have a dispute over their employment are generally required to go through an administrative process rather than suing in federal court.

Hours after he was inaugurated on January 20, President Donald Trump, a Republican, ordered all U.S. foreign aid to be paused to ensure it is aligned with his “America First” policy, throwing USAID, the United States’ main foreign aid agency, into chaos.

The U.S. State Department issued worldwide stop-work directives after the executive order was issued, halting lifesaving aid programs around the world with limited exceptions for emergency food delivery. The Trump administration has said it intends to merge USAID into the State Department and eliminate most of its staff.

The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association sued last week, claiming that the Trump administration is illegally moving to shut down USAID without authorization from Congress and in the process is creating a global humanitarian crisis.

Eric Hamilton, a Justice Department lawyer, said at Thursday’s hearing that the administration was not shutting down USAID but only pausing its operations as part of Trump’s plan to “recalibrate” foreign aid policy, and that some foreign aid “continues to flow.”

But Karla Gilbride, a lawyer for the unions, countered that in reality USAID contracts have been canceled en masse, humanitarian work has ground to a halt and a waiver process promised by administration officials to allow vital aid to continue is not functioning.

Gilbride argued that, without a broad order halting the administration’s actions while the lawsuit proceeds, USAID will be “dismantled” before the workers can get any relief in court.

“There has been a mismatch in the proceedings today between words on paper and actions experienced on the ground,” she said.

Two similar lawsuits were filed earlier this week, one by two non-profit groups that receive funding from USAID and one on behalf of contractors that handle much of its work. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali is currently weighing whether to enter a temporary restraining order in those cases.

In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $72 billion of aid worldwide, partly through USAID, for initiatives including women’s health in conflict zones, clean water access, HIV/AIDS treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work. It provided 42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024.

Foreign aid, which makes up less than 1% of the United States’ total budget, has historically been justified not only on humanitarian grounds but as part of Washington’s efforts to build alliances, reinforce diplomacy and counter the influence of adversaries such as China and Russia in the developing world.

(Reporting By Blake Brittain in Washington and Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Alistair Bell)

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By Gabriella Borter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senator Tina Smith said she will not seek re-election in 2026, which leaves an open seat in moderately competitive Minnesota and complicates her party’s hopes of winning back control of the chamber in the midterm elections.

Smith, 66, was first elected in a special election in 2018. She posted her video announcement to social media on Thursday, citing her desire to spend more time with family.

“I have loved my job as U.S. senator, and also after 20 years of hard and rewarding work in the public sector, I’m ready to spend more time with my family,” she said.

While Democrats still have a high chance of winning Smith’s open seat in 2026, her dropping out makes the race slightly more difficult for the party. Republicans currentlyF hold a 53-47 Senate majority.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won Minnesota with 51% over Republican President Donald Trump’s 47% in 2024.

The nonpartisan University of Virginia’s Center for Politics changed its outlook on the Minnesota Senate race from “Likely Democratic” to “Leans Democratic” after Smith’s move.

“It’s an open seat in a light blue state. I still think Democrats are favored to hold it, there’s just more uncertainty,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the center.

Democrats face an uphill climb to take the Senate majority because there are few competitive Republican seats up for grabs to flip, with the possible exception of Thom Tillis’ seat in North Carolina and Susan Collins’ in Maine.

Democratic Senator Gary Peters’ recent announcement that he too would not seek re-election in a Michigan race now seen as a tossup further complicates things for the party.

Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan said on social media that she would soon be announcing a Senate bid, and other possible candidates could include Governor Tim Walz and U.S. Congresswoman Angie Craig, Kondik said.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and David Gregorio)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two U.S. senators called on Wednesday for increased funding and staffing for Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control after a fatal midair collision in the nation’s capital last month highlighted the persistent lack of aviation safety personnel.

Senators Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and Republican John Hoeven in a letter first reported by Reuters urged the FAA to work with Congress and the controllers to increase funding for operations, modernize facilities and equipment and expand the FAA training academy’s capacity.

The January 29 collision between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter killed 67 people near Washington Reagan National Airport in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years.

“For the sake of America’s traveling public, we can and must do better,” the senators wrote. “At a minimum, we must commit to doing all we can to reinforce our (controller) workforce and keep tragedies like this from becoming commonplace.”

The senators noted the FAA is currently more than 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels and nearly all control towers have staffing shortages. FAA controller staffing has been relatively flat in recent years and is down 10% from 2012.

The senators said Reagan National’s tower has 25 fully-certified controllers, below the targeted 30.

“As in many places across the country, (Reagan’s) controllers often work six-day weeks and ten-hour days,” the senators wrote. “The fatigue and stress that they regularly experience as a result of this substantial workload will only grow worse unless we take significant and long overdue measures.”

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said last week he was reconsidering rules that allowed air traffic control supervisors to reduce staffing before the fatal collision.

Duffy noted before the crash, two air traffic control positions were consolidated for helicopters and aircraft.

“We’re going to pull that authority back to make sure that we have the right policies in place inside our towers to make sure when you fly you’re safe,” he said.

Duffy said the FAA was using antiquated technology to oversee flights.

He also plans to soon announce steps to surge more air traffic control training and applicants. He could also call for new incentives to keep retirement-eligible controllers on the job or propose to extend the mandatory retirement age for controllers, which is 56.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)

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