George Santos and aide appear to be discussing plea deals with feds

NEW YORK — Rep. George Santos and his former campaign aide, both indicted by federal prosecutors, appear to be in plea talks with the government, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

Prosecutors in the Santos case asked the judge overseeing the case to delay a court hearing set for Thursday because “the parties have continued to discuss possible paths forward in this matter.” They added: “The parties wish to have additional time to continue those discussions.”

Santos, a first-term Republican from New York, pleaded not guilty in May to federal charges of wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds. Prosecutors accused him of fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits, using campaign contributions to pay down personal debts and purchase designer clothing and lying to the House of Representatives about his financial condition.

Last month, one of Santos’ former campaign aides, Samuel Miele, was also indicted for allegedly impersonating a House leadership aide while soliciting contributions for Santos’ campaign. Miele, who was charged with wire fraud and identity theft, pleaded not guilty.

On Tuesday, however, prosecutors in his case told the court that they and Miele needed to delay a hearing “to accommodate ongoing discovery review and plea negotiations,” adding that “negotiations concerning a potential resolution of this case without the need for a trial are active and ongoing.”

Santos, who is running for reelection, has previously said he doesn’t plan to resign from the House and intends to continue his campaign. “I’m going to fight the witch hunt,” he told reporters in the hours following his arraignment. “I’m going to take care of clearing my name.”

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Biden nominates former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to serve as ambassador to Israel

President Joe Biden has nominated former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, the White House announced Tuesday.

Lew, who served as White House chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration, would succeed Ambassador Tom Nides, who left the post in July. Lew also served as OMB director during the Clinton administration.

If Lew is confirmed by the Senate, he will come to one of the highest-profile U.S. ambassadorships, with the Biden administration pushing for Israel and Saudi Arabia — two of the biggest Middle East powers but longtime rivals — to normalize their relationship.

The effort to strengthen that historically fraught relationship comes after the Trump administration helped facilitate the “Abraham Accords,” normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthy Arab state, has the potential to reshape the region and boost Israel’s standing in significant ways. But brokering such a deal is a heavy lift as the kingdom has said it won’t officially recognize Israel before a resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Lew is currently a managing partner at Lindsay Goldberg, a private equity firm, and a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York. A spokesperson for Lew said he did not have any immediate comment on his nomination.

Democratic Majority for Israel President and CEO Mark Mellman said Lew would come to the posting “well-versed in the intricacies of international relations and the pressing issues facing Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance.”

He also currently serves as chair of the board of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, co-president of the board of the National Library of Israel USA and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lew has also previously served as managing director and chief operating officer for two Citigroup business units. He was executive vice president and the chief operating officer of New York University and a professor of public administration in the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU.

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Comer subpoenas Mayorkas, DHS, Secret Service in Hunter Biden probe

Republicans are probing whistleblower allegations of interference in the years-long federal investigation into Hunter Biden.

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Appeals court limits special counsel’s effort to access Rep. Scott Perry’s phone

A federal appeals court panel has partially blocked efforts by special counsel Jack Smith to access the seized cell phone data of Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a key figure in Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 presidential election.

In a ruling that remains under seal, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside part of a lower court’s decision that would have allowed Smith’s prosecutors to access much of the contents they sought from Perry’s phone.

The FBI seized the device from Perry in August 2022, under a court-authorized search warrant, but has yet to access relevant documents and communications after Perry moved to prevent it, citing his legal privileges as a federal lawmaker and the authority of Congress to be free of interference from the executive branch.

The dispute began before Attorney General Merrick Garland named Smith as a special counsel last November but appears to have continued on under Smith’s auspices after he took over ongoing investigations into interference with the certification of the 2020 election results.

Smith’s team may seek review by the full bench of the appeals court or by the Supreme Court, so Tuesday’s ruling may not be the final word. A spokesperson for Smith had no immediate comment on the decision or on whether prosecutors would seek further review.

Perry’s lawyers were in court Tuesday morning for another case — the criminal trial of former Trump aide Peter Navarro — and were seen perusing the ruling shortly after it came out. Though they declined to discuss the details, the lawyers seemed upbeat about the result.

The new ruling is a significant milestone for both Perry and the House of Representatives, which raised alarms about prosecutors’ effort to access the phone of a member of Congress.

Notably, while the case was argued in February, it took the appeals court more than six months to issue a ruling. That’s a surprisingly protracted review period for a matter that appeared to be urgent for prosecutors — and one that suggests the panel engaged in a painstaking review of the records at issue.

Though the appeals court’s 29-page decision remains sealed, the three-judge panel indicated in the court’s docket Tuesday that it had partially rejected the ruling of U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who granted prosecutors access to most of the files seized from Perry’s phone, blocking only a few dozen that she deemed beyond the reach of federal investigators.

Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, wrote the appeals court’s main opinion, joined by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush. Judge Greg Katsas, also a Trump appointee, filed a six-page concurring opinion. The grounds for any disagreement among the judges wasn’t immediately clear since the opinions remain under seal.

At issue is the courts’ interpretation of the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which grants immunity to members of Congress from criminal proceedings that touch on their official work. Perry has argued that much of what Smith’s team has sought is protected by this constitutional provision and should be off-limits to prosecutors.

Howell, however, disagreed, saying that Perry’s freelancing efforts to investigate election fraud — and to communicate it with the executive branch — rendered those contacts unprotected by speech-or-debate immunity.

The appeals court held a public oral argument in the case after partially unsealing the matter amid media scrutiny, but a portion of the argument was still held in secret.

During the argument, a Justice Department attorney now assigned to Smith’s office argued that speech-or-debate protection only applies to inquiries lawmakers conduct pursuant to some formal investigation or inquiry, not those they embark on themselves. Rao and Katsas appeared to disagree, suggesting DOJ’s formulation was too narrow and that there is at least some protection for individual members of Congress acting alone.

Perry told POLITICO in February he was pleased with the appeals court’s decision to put Howell’s ruling on hold while it took up the case.

In an order released Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit panel gave Perry’s lawyers and prosecutors a week to indicate whether they thought any portions of the rulings need to remain secret.

The appeals court’s opinion is likely to be closely scrutinized on Capitol Hill, where any interpretation of the speech-or-debate clause carries enormous implications for lawmakers.

House Democrats and Republicans joined together to intervene in Perry’s case — even without knowing the details of what prosecutors were seeking from Perry — to argue against any sweeping new rulings that would weaken speech-or-debate protections for lawmakers. The House’s friend-of-the-court brief in the case remains under seal.

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What Republicans’ ‘Family Feud’ Gets Wrong About Parenting in America

One year ago, I wrote in these pages about how as a millennial mother of three I don’t have a home in either political party. I wrote that the Republican Party — where I’ve spent most of my political life — had been particularly disappointing given its “pro-family” and “pro-life” rhetoric and yet failing to support vulnerable mothers and children. That, unfortunately, hasn’t changed much, even in the contentious and politically challenging aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

But over the past year, schisms have emerged within the GOP about family policy, including a debate over problem itself. That gives me some hope that the party is — finally — grappling with this problem. Sometimes this discussion is framed in terms of economics and family affordability, other times as a cultural phenomenon of declining marriage and birthrates, or something more amorphous but arguably more on point — declining hope and generalized anxiety among parents with young children.

These debates represent progress, however incremental, that family policy has gone from something that the GOP doesn’t really focus on to something that party leaders are beginning to chew on and test out various approaches.

To get there, Republicans will have to start asking the right questions, and that will be harder to do if more people like me leave the party. But that’s not happening yet. Here’s what they’re getting wrong.

The emergent GOP “family feud” was on full display this summer when the American Enterprise Institute (where I used to work) hosted an event with several of its scholars who debated whether it is more costly to raise a family in America now relative to forty years ago. The guest and provocateur was an in-the-family GOP dissenter: Oren Cass of American Compass, former deputy policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

Cass has produced a “Cost of Thriving” index (COTI), claiming that it’s become more costly to raise a family now than in 1985, which as far as I can tell is no magical starting point — although it is my birth year, so I don’t mind it. Cass calculates how many weeks it would take a male worker to afford a basket of middle-class family expenses, including food, housing, health care, transportation and higher education. In 1985, COTI was about 40, meaning a man would need to work for nearly 40 weeks to support a family on his income. In 2022, COTI was 62 — more than the number of weeks in a year. Cass’ conclusion: middle-class status essentially cannot be reached on one income.

For fiscal conservatives, this message was never going to go down easy. The unchallenged assertion that it has become more costly to raise a family has the potential to open the floodgates for new government programs and spending. Thus, Scott Winship and Angela Rachidi of AEI presented government data aimed at undermining Cass’ argument, showing instead that household incomes have risen over the last four decades once taxes and government benefits are accounted for. They also made pointed corrections to Cass’ index, such as not using the sticker price of college for higher education costs, or including the average spending on healthcare insurance instead of bundling employer and employee contributions. After the event, AEI released a publication called “The Cost of Thriving Has Fallen: Correcting and Rejecting the American Compass Cost-of-Thriving.” For policy wonks, the back-and-forth drama doesn’t get much better than that.

My own interpretation of the data on family affordability, written up in a paper last fall, lands somewhere between Cass and Winship. Certain child-related costs are increasing more than income for many low-income households (in particular for renters and families needing childcare outside the home). An increase in single parenting compounds affordability challenges, and existing government supports don’t reach many low-income families and in other cases, have made affordability challenges worse. (More on that shortly.) But limiting the debate to economics — and especially attempting to compare today’s childrearing costs to past generations — is unsatisfyingly insufficient to determine what support families need to flourish today.

The reality is there’s no number, no index, no magical inflection point even should one side “win” the economic analysis. Stasis or marginal improvement doesn’t necessarily indicate that things are good. The trend line is not determinant of whether action or inaction is needed, whether the metric is COTI or median household income.

Even if the economic well-being of families has dramatically improved over the last four decades would that mean no further interventions are warranted? Consider that child poverty has actually fallen to record lows, which would suggest that we can shift our focus elsewhere. But even with those improvements, children remain the most impoverished demographic in America. Is that status quo acceptable? Consider also that few if any parents had paid parental leave back in the 1980s. (I often hear that as a reason to not create such a policy now.) But the research is robust that paid leave leads to a host of economic and health benefits for infants and parents. Ideally, we want our children to have more opportunity, more security than what we’ve had. If we have the ability to improve the next generation’s lives, even to the point of being better than ours, isn’t that worth pursuing?

If the end goal is making policy that addresses the real challenges affecting families, that requires a much broader discussion. At the AEI event, Rachidi, my former colleague and coauthor, tried to argue that point, noting that there has been a measurable decline in social capital in terms of marriage and friendships, and how that may make people feel more economically exposed even if their income is stable or higher after taxes and transfers. She was onto something.

The truth is that costs and income are only part of the story, and so far the Republican “family feud” has failed to grapple well with this reality. In June, Pew Research released a report, “Parenting in America Today,” that looked at what parents worry about. The top concern was mental health. Nearly three quarters of parents told the researchers that they are concerned about their children being anxious or depressed, with 40 percent saying they were extremely concerned. This is not an unfounded concern; historic levels of teenage anxiety have been widely reported, especially among girls. More than half of parents report being extremely or somewhat concerned about their child being bullied or attacked, and a quarter of all parents are extremely or very concerned that their child will be shot. This is something new, and it’s deeply stressful for families.

There’s more. In surveys asking if their kids will be better off than they are, parents are decidedly pessimistic. Trust in public schools is at an all-time low, securing the confidence of only a quarter of parents, while the cost of private schools even for well-to-do families are a stretch. Fewer families have the resources and stability of two married parents as economist Melissa Kearney’s forthcoming new book shows. Many parents (especially fathers) report spending less time with their kids than they want. They report having fewer kids than they’d like due to costs, especially child care costs. Rates of religion in America are way down, and along with it, “the village” that helps support families is unraveling, as Jess Grose has documented in the New York Times. The Harvard Human Flourishing Program — hardly a megachurch franchise — reports that kids from religious families have better mental health outcomes, including more happiness, less depression and less risky behavior. Most parents (71 percent) are very concerned about their children’s screen time, a seemingly ubiquitous feature of school, home and friend’s houses, another brand new stressor.

The broader context of what American families are facing might help to explain why showing an up-and-to-the-right chart of average household income is probably not going to resonate with parents and might prematurely let policymakers off the hook.

Combined with economic pressures, there is a generalized anxiety around parenthood these days. Raising children is the most sacrificial and vulnerable act a human can undertake, especially as a mother. And perhaps because this generation is doing so at a time of significant technological, demographic, economic and political shifts, this helps explain why there’s at least some reduction in family formation and newfound anxieties for those who plow ahead.

Back in the old days, the discipline of economics was intertwined with politics and ethics. The same should be true for evaluating the well-being of families today. When the whole picture is taken into account, if there’s any ability to help or support Americans raising young kids today, a wide accounting of the circumstances would suggest that we do so.

Even for — and especially for — pro-family conservatives.

I’d be remiss not to point out here that a certain version of reframing family policy is very much underway within the more populist wing of the Republican Party. Here, the problem facing families is not being defined as affordability, but changes in marriage and childrearing patterns, and this type of conservative leans toward government promotion of marriage and childrearing… and religion.

There’s been growing interest among conservatives ranging from the Heritage Foundation to Patrick Deneen’s new book in Hungary-type reforms for supporting marriage and big families; those policies include economic loans that are forgiven for couples who stay married and have at least three kids, and allowing families with four or more kids to not pay income tax. These are certainly expensive ideas, which is not a reason to do it, but they should give small-government conservatives pause. I think there’s a question about the efficacy of these reforms; I’m not sure relationship decisions can or should hinge on one-time economic transactions — it kind of feels like paying people to have friends to combat our loneliness epidemic. Republicans have long derided Democrats for making European comparisons they see as apples and oranges, which I tend to agree with, but now they are doing the same. But perhaps most importantly, I’m concerned that the funds wouldn’t go to where the need is the greatest. As AEI scholar Charles Murray wrote in his book, Coming Apart, married parents tend to be wealthier and more educated and probably shouldn’t be triaged first for support. And few American women (only 14 percent) go on to have four children. Maybe we should start with peoples’ first baby.

And I’ll also say it, even though I don’t want to, that there’s an off-putting thread running through these policies, at least for this suburban mom. It was on display when former President Donald Trump said that the men would be “so lucky” with his baby bonus idea, implying that fatherhood is about the sex. You can also see it even with that well-meaning contingent of conservatives who emphasize stay-at-home parenting and promote large families but who don’t discuss helping mothers transition back into the labor force, or giving working parents protections so they can be with their children if they would like to, or supporting the mom who was going to get an abortion and didn’t. All that, well, it doesn’t rub right. Neither does the fact that Cass calculates affordability based on male incomes alone. Many polls show a preference for the man to be the breadwinner, and male earnings appear correlated to marriageability. I get that. But families make a range of decisions about children and work. The reality is that 40 percent of households are headed by breadwinning moms. There’s a willing blindness to that reality that feels self-defeating. And the tone and assumptions are likely enflame divides, not bring people together. The culture wars are already burning hot as it is.

This summer, the Wall Street Journal editorial board praised Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ economic policy for tax cuts and for not “falling for fads” like the Child Tax Credit (a signature plank of 2017 GOP-tax legislation). Shortly thereafter, the paper ran an article, entitled “The Tragedy of Being a New Mom in America,” citing our high maternal mortality rate and the high rates of anxiety and depression among new parents, attributed in part to lack of paid parental leave relative to every other developed nation.

This dichotomy is representative of a party — indeed, of a conservative movement — that’s in transition, caught between supply-side economics, old-school family values and new data and realities. Some in the GOP have zeroed in on economics and a limited government approach, arguing that as long as income is more or less flat from the 1980s, well then, our work is done. Others say that our marriage and fertility rates look nothing like the 1980s, and that only a big government approach can get us back there.

Meanwhile, the data are glaring that the status quo right now isn’t working. We need practical, incremental steps to make family life better today — ideally, in ways that would generate broad bipartisan support so that families could depend on them for more than four years at a time, and in ways that would signal to American families that the Republican Party isn’t as shallow about the real needs of families as the culture wars would suggest.

The sooner the GOP starts debating how to do this, the better.

Here’s my hope: That the back-and-forth within the GOP speaks to a reframing in the works today among a broad group of thinkers, policymakers and parents seeking to improve life for today’s families with children.

We are one year out from the Dobbs decision, which has left an open window for anti-abortion conservatives to show how they will extend their commitment to children beyond the womb. Several states have taken actions such as expanding Medicaid to support new mothers, but those are the exceptions. For the most part, the Republican-led states with the tightest restrictions on abortion have also been the most tightfisted when it comes to policies and programs that support new parents and children.

GOP presidential contenders should keep this in mind as the campaign begins to heat up. You don’t normally run for president saying that things are awesome just as they are, but you propose changes. If a candidate goes to a playground and looks at parents in the eye and says things are awesome for people raising kids right now — that isn’t going to fly, regardless of the economic statistics in his or her back pocket.

Can Washington improve the realities that parents are facing? As a good, limited-government conservative, I’d have to say some, but probably less than you, me, or other parents probably want. So it’s important for politicians to not promise the sky here. Raising children is always going to be stressful (as well as joyful) and costly. No policy can fully change that. It’s also important to emphasize the role of communities, and social networks, and extended families and churches, all of which have a role to play.

But just because there’s a limited role for government, doesn’t mean there isn’t one at all. Policy improvements could help to change the status quo for families, begin to build trust among parents that their representatives care about people like them and take steps toward becoming a society that’s more accommodating for parents and children. And it may be where all of the Republican Party’s factions finally are able to find some consensus. As Nikki Haley masterfully said in the first Republican presidential debate in response to a question on abortion, “can’t we all agree that ...” This framework could carry water for the elephant.

For example, can’t we all agree that babies shouldn’t be needlessly separated from mothers and fathers in the days immediately after birth? Conservatives tend to be no fan of the swamp, but if our tax dollars are going for federal employees having 12 weeks off for their newborns (a Trump-era policy), well then, shouldn’t that be the baseline for all working parents? Currently only a small share of workers receive such benefits from their employer, it’s a coin flip if they have job protection following birth. Most working parents report not being able to spend the time with their infants that they’d prefer. Conservatives could lead on setting boundaries to protect the early weeks of parenthood and make sure the private sector doesn’t separate new parents and children too early.

Another policy conservatives should support is a school choice program for early education. Republicans should agree to fully fund bipartisan state block grants for child care so that all eligible families can receive high-quality child care and pre-K education through a place of their choosing — faith-based groups, home-based groups, or schools. Each state would have prerogative for how to build out their own system; Texas will likely look a lot different from Massachusetts. Conservatives, as Romney has already proposed, could lead the charge in helping to rework some of the existing spending into an easier-to-access cash support, reducing government bureaucracy along the way.

It doesn’t have to be new spending; it can be old spending done better. Consider that there were 3.6 million babies born in the U.S. last year. What if each of these children received a $10,000 education voucher every year for five years? It could be used on child care, music lessons, Mother’s Day Out at church, or preschool at any place of a parents’ choosing. Whatever is not used (say, for stay-at-home parents) could be kept in a 529 account to help pay for private school, college, vocational training, or some other education option. Unlike paying people cash, this money is directly connected to skills that would benefit the children, parents and society. The result would be that all children from ages 0-18 (when accounting for public school) would have access to care and education programs that align with their families’ needs and values — a historic school choice endeavor. Using current birth rates and back-of-the-envelope math, the price tag would be $180 billion a year, relative to the approximately $120 billion currently spent on the Child Tax Credit each year.

Finally, conservatives could lead the charge in a number of policy areas that involve real-world harms to kids, including reducing children’s social media exposure and adopting bipartisan gun safety rules designed to protect children. They should also address housing costs and college costs — regardless of whether those costs are technically up, down or sideways — by eliminating costly zoning rules that artificially drive up housing costs and creating viable career pathways through apprenticeship and vocational training that don’t require a costly college credential. They can take the lead on addressing our historic debt that will fall on future generations, one that’s largely the result of generous spending for older-age Americans and little spent on children who eventually will be responsible for paying for it.

Is this the GOP family policy agenda? These ideas haven’t made it into mainstream conservative thought, but they are bubbling up here and there from thinkers on the right. As the larger party structures wrestle with different frames for supporting families and children, made more urgent by the Dobbs decision, I have hope that they’ll turn to some of these. Not just for their own sake or as bait for women voters. But because the country we love depends on healthy and thriving families; pro-family conservatives know that in their core.

This generation of parents and kids is facing a unique confluence of pressures. Nostalgia for the old days, fanning culture wars and economic data wielded to shut down debate doesn’t help. A party that’s truly pro-family needs fresh and innovative ideas of its own. Otherwise, the rhetoric rings hollow and becomes another missed opportunity for reform, another turnoff for millennial women who’ve already left the party in droves.

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Sweltering plane cabins are travelers’ newest misery

This summer’s record heat is turning up the misery for airline passengers during the most sweltering part of a flight — that period during boarding before the engines and air conditioning ramp up.  

It’s also calling new attention to complaints from pilots and flight attendants about airlines’ tolerance for hot air.

American Airlines will let cabin temperatures reach 90 degrees before the company considers it too hot to board, according to an internal document reviewed by POLITICO. JetBlue Airways sets that threshold at 85 degrees, the airline says in a recent memo reviewed by POLITICO, after raising it from 80. And federal regulators have set no uniform standards for cabin temperatures during boarding.

Keeping the cabins cooler could require airlines to burn more fuel, potentially violating their pledges to lessen greenhouse gas pollution — or to delay boarding until temperatures drop, making it harder to keep flights running on time. But aviation unions say Washington must act, in yet another example of the conflicts that the planet’s warming is creating.

This summer has included the hottest June and hottest July ever recorded, federal scientists have said, a trend that has driven plenty of misery worldwide — not just on the tarmac.

“I don't see the summers getting any cooler,” said Tyesha Best, president of Local 579 of the Transport Workers Union of America, which represents JetBlue flight attendants.

Stifling-hot cabin air doesn’t just affect the health of passengers and crews, Best added. “With hot cabins come hot tempers.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told POLITICO that his department is monitoring heat trends as well, and taking action in “extreme cases.” But he added that “more routinely, there needs to be a level of comfort and safety in terms of cabin temperature.”

But as long as planes are able to take off without an extended delay that leaves planes waiting on the tarmac, cabin temperatures can be quickly rectified, Buttigieg argued.

“If you can prevent an unreasonable tarmac delay, then usually you're also not going to have an unreasonable period of discomfort or danger” during the boarding process, he said.

Airlines for America, which represents major domestic airlines, said the industry works to ensure “a safe and comfortable” experience for everyone, “including activating air flow to cool the cabin during the boarding process.”

“Airlines will only operate when passengers, crew and people on the ground are safe,” A4A spokesperson Hannah Walden said.

But the unions say heat-related illnesses are an increasing concern. They want more active intervention from either lawmakers or DOT — such as setting an acceptable temperature range for plane cabins, or requiring airlines to run the air conditioners sooner.

In July, for example, passengers on a Delta flight bound for Atlanta were stranded on the tarmac for hours in high heat, causing some travelers to get sick and others to pass out. The flight was finally canceled.

Delta has acknowledged that the temperatures inside the cabin were “uncomfortable.” It’s now cooperating with the Transportation Department’s investigation of the incident, airline spokesperson Lisa Hanna said.

“Our procedures around hot cabin prevention are continuously being evaluated and updated for the best experience possible across our operation and for the comfort and safety of our customers and people," Hanna said.

Buttigieg called the incident “shocking” and questioned “how it was possible for passengers” to be left idling for so long as the temperatures climbed, Reuters reported at the time.

Three major U.S. airlines — Delta, United and Southwest — don’t set any maximum cabin temperatures that would cause them to keep passengers from boarding, spokespeople for the companies said.

Other airlines set cabin temperature thresholds that aviation unions consider unacceptable.

In June, as record-breaking heat began enveloping large swaths of the United States, JetBlue set 85 degrees as its threshold for how hot a plane can be and still board passengers, according to a June 1 internal memo reviewed by POLITICO. It had previously been 80 degrees, the memo said.

The memo said the extra 5 degrees of leeway would help expedite boarding and aid the airline’s on-time performance.

When asked about the new temperature threshold, JetBlue repeatedly declined to address the specifics of the change or elaborate on its standards, but said the company’s policies “are designed to ensure” its commitment to the safety of its crew members and customers.

“Our acceptable boarding temperatures align with common industry standards and best practices, and allow us to safely serve more than one hundred destinations with various climates and on numerous types of aircraft,” the airline said in a statement.

And American considers a cabin temperature of up to 90 degrees adequate to board passengers, according to the document shared with POLITICO. However, the procedures say American’s crews begin taking steps to lessen the heat once a cabin hits 80 degrees, such as closing window shades and opening air vents.

“Customer service will not board passengers if the cabin temperature is above 90°F except in extreme cases,” the document says, adding that the “captain has final authority.”

American spokesperson Amy Lawrence confirmed the steps that the airline takes to mitigate temperatures above 80 degrees, but would not confirm or comment further on its maximum boarding temperature policy.

Buttigieg’s department has no regulations setting a maximum temperature during a flight, aside from saying airlines must keep cabins at a “comfortable” temperature during extended tarmac delays before takeoff or after landing. That rule doesn’t define “comfortable.”

When asked if the agency is considering regulating cabin temperatures during boarding, DOT spokesperson Ben Halle did not answer directly. Instead the agency pointed to its temperature standards during extended tarmac delays of up to three hours, after which passengers must be given the option to get off the plane.

In his interview with POLITICO, Buttigieg reiterated that DOT has the authority to hold airlines accountable for unreasonable cabin temperatures when planes are idling for long periods of time on the tarmac.

Airlines' cooling options have tradeoffs

Similar to the way cooling works in cars, even if an airplane’s air conditioner is on, it doesn’t start really lowering the cabin temperature until the engine ramps up, usually after takeoff. And other options for cooling planes during boarding bring drawbacks.

The airline could use the auxiliary power unit — a small jet engine at the back of a plane — to boost engine power and circulate air throughout the cabin. But that would burn additional fuel at a time when the industry is under pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, leaving the unit on too long can cause equipment to malfunction.

Airlines can also use hoses and external generator units to pump cool air into the cabin. But those units don't always work well — they can distribute air unevenly, and sometimes outside temperatures are too hot for those units to significantly cool the plane.

This can be especially acute at hot-weather airports like Phoenix Sky Harbor and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airports, which have recorded over 100-degree temperatures this summer.

Union renews call for action

In 2018, the Association of Flight Attendants, with support from the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents most U.S. airline pilots, and other unions, petitioned the department to create standards for cabin temperatures.

In July, a JetBlue flight from the Dominican Republic to Boston had to turn back after a malfunctioning air conditioner sent cabin temperatures up to 97 degrees. (JetBlue apologized for the incident and determined that the “onboard climate control system was not functioning properly,” the airline said in a statement.)

Following the incident, TWU flight attendants filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on extreme heat conditions, Best said.

The FAA did not offer comment on whether it responded to the complaints, but said its regulations work to ensure that aircraft are certified to be able to operate in certain temperatures. Meanwhile, it’s up to the Transportation Department to regulate “passenger comfort,” the agency said.

OSHA said over the past two months it had received two complaints for excessive airplane cabin temperatures during boarding. One complaint, related to working in excessive heat in wool uniforms on the jet bridge and tarmac, was closed after OSHA said it received an "adequate response" from the employer. The other, related to 95-degree cabin temperatures due to faulty machinery, was closed because it was outside of OSHA's jurisdiction.

OSHA Assistant Secretary Doug Parker said his agency is working on a final rule on heat illness prevention and "also enhancing our enforcement compliance efforts to make sure employers and workers understand the dangers of heat illness and how to prevent it." The rule is expected to apply across general industry, and in the construction, maritime and agriculture industries.

“Many workers are at increased risk, sometimes because of the jobs they do, but also because of factors like the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or the fact that English is not their first language. Every worker is entitled to a safe and healthy workplace, and we will continue to use all the tools in our toolbox to ensure all workers have the health and safety protections they need and deserve in every workplace," Parker said in an emailed statement.

When asked for comment about a possible federal temperature mandate, Airlines for America said it supports “quality studies regarding cabin temperatures that are based on methodically reviewed data and science.” Those studies should “take into account the unique and broad spectrum of operating environments — including varying climates and seasons, fleet types and circumstances in which aircraft operate,” said Walden, A4A’s spokesperson.

The industry group maintained that “extreme heat impacts on commercial aircraft operations are rare” because commercial airplanes are certified to operate only in a range of temperatures. (Larger Boeing and Airbus models max out between 126 and 127 degrees, respectively. Once outside temperatures exceed 104 degrees, pilots need to take steps to cool down the plane to help preserve the equipment on board, according to the American Airlines document.)

But the Association of Flight Attendants, which maintains a mobile app that allows passengers and crew to report when flights get too toasty or chilly, says that data — which is updated monthly — shows plenty of complaints about sweltering cabins.

Of the 4,025 extreme temperature reports people have filed since 2018, more than half recorded between 80 to 90 degrees, the union says. (Some aircraft models have temperature readers or controls accessible to flight attendants, others do not.) More than half of all reports were taken during boarding, while the door to the aircraft was still open.

Vague standards, little action from Congress

Halle said DOT is currently investigating “several” incidents related to cabin temperature, but would not elaborate. DOT offered no comment when asked whether it should impose cabin temperature mandates during boarding, such as ones the unions are pushing. Instead, the agency pointed to a 2018 enforcement order it had issued against Allegiant Air for a series of extended tarmac delays, which accused the airline of failing to “provide passengers a comfortable cabin temperature on several delayed flights.”

At the time, Allegiant said keeping cabins cool during 100-plus-degree weather had been “difficult at best,” despite the airline’s use of additional air conditioning carts and other measures, according to the DOT consent order.

The order does not specify any temperature threshold but says DOT’s decision to take action was based on passenger and crew member statements, temperature readings, medical incidents and the potential use of external cooling devices, among other things.

The department’s inspector general faulted it in 2014 for how it has implemented its tarmac delay rule, including the lack of any definitions for “comfortable” cabin temperatures.

“Although the [law] requires carriers to provide comfortable cabin temperature to passengers, DOT has not included this requirement in its regulations nor defined what constitutes comfortable cabin temperature,” the inspector general wrote. “Without robust requirements, DOT cannot be sure that passengers are being afforded the relief intended during lengthy flight delays.”

The IG report also said that in 2013, the American National Standards Institute and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers recommended that cabin temperature should not exceed 80 degrees. The engineers group reiterated this position in a 2019 technical handbook.

“DOT staff told us they intend to address the cabin temperature issue in a future update to the tarmac delay regulations, but it is unclear when this regulation will be issued,” the IG’s report said.

The department had no comment when asked whether it is still considering the report’s cabin temperature recommendations and why no such update has yet been issued.

Meanwhile, Congress is mainly pushing for more study.

The House-passed version of this year’s FAA reauthorization bill, H.R. 3935, would require the FAA to examine the issue — but only if industry and unions can’t come to a consensus on a safe cabin temperature.

The Senate’s version, S. 1939, would order a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on the health and safety impacts for temperatures less than 65 degrees or more than 85 degrees during “all phases” of flight.

The Senate Commerce Committee has yet to mark up that bill.

Adam Wren contributed to this report. 

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Jill Biden tests positive for Covid-19

First lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 Monday evening and is "currently experiencing only mild symptoms," according to the White House.

The first lady will remain at her home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., her communications director Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement.

This is the first lady’s second Covid diagnosis. She first tested positive in August 2022.

President Joe Biden tested negative for the virus on Monday night and will continue to test this week and monitor symptoms, according to a White House statement.

The president was scheduled to attend the G-20 summit in India later this week, but those plans could be disrupted by a positive Covid diagnosis.

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