His Eye Is on the Road

The law creating the office of Secretary of Transportation had hardly been signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 when a second-term Congressman from Seattle pinpointed the job as his next stop on the turnpike of his political career. Last week Brock Adams (he never uses the second syllable of his baptismal name Brockman) arrived at this goal when President-elect Carter announced his nomination as Transportation's fifth Secretary.

While Adams, 49, bided his time through two Republican Administrations, he did everything possible to qualify himself for the post he coveted, accumulating extensive knowledge about the responsibilities of the department that he is now expected to head, and developing definite ideas about programs.

As a freshman, Adams was named to the House's sprawling Commerce Committee and soon made a niche for himself on its transportation subcommittee. With the then struggling Boeing aircraft plants and thousands of their employees in his home district, it was all but inevitable that he would vote in 1971 for the U.S. to develop a supersonic passenger plane.

Deregulation Myth. Soon the SST will again be roaring around Adams: outgoing Secretary William T. Coleman Jr.'s 16-month test of the Concorde's landing and takeoff sound levels and other environmental effects at Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., expires next summer. It will be up to Adams to decide if the flights are to continue.

It has been with respect to airlines in general that Adams has been most outspoken against the Nixon and Ford Administrations' aborted proposal for what Adams has dubbed "the myth of deregulation." Adams calls instead for turning "our thoughts to the realities of regulation and the changes that are needed." Complete deregulation, he insists, would lead to cutthroat price competition and protect neither the airlines nor the passengers. Says Adams: "You don't need to burn the house down to roast a pig."

Reviving Railroads. On land, Adams' positions and records are even firmer. It was he who in 1970 did most to push through the legislation creating Amtrak as a first step in reviving the nation's dying railroads. In 1973 he was the primary author of the Conrail plan, merging the bankrupt Penn Central and other roads into a Northeastern network. He favors continued regulation of the trucking industry and -most important to big-city dwellers -he believes in improvements in mass transit.

Considering that the airlines, railroads, over-the-road truckers and barges are all competitive with one another at some points, it is remarkable that lobbyists for these interests have unanimously recommended Adams' nomination. The one sour note was sounded by consumer groups -taking their cue from Ralph Nader -that favor total rather than partial deregulation. But even they could not accuse Adams of being in the pocket of any interest group or lobby.

Adams will bring a touch of Georgia to the Cabinet, but not of the Carter kind. His father's Atlanta clothing store went broke during the Depression, and Adams was reared on small farms in Iowa and Oregon. A well-remembered hate: chopping wood for the family stove. A brilliant student (top in his class at the University of Washington and a law degree from Harvard), an early booster of John Kennedy, a rousing success in both Washingtons, he continues to keep a sharp eye on the road ahead. His presumed next stop: the U.S. Senate.

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