Welcome back to The Political Spectrum! Happy Sunday! Side note: On Monday we will feature an interview with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) about what exactly went wrong for the North Carolina Republican Party. I was already working on this piece about the Department of Transportation rolling back disabled regulations when the FAA grounded all flights due to technical difficulties. Let’s get to work.
Throughout the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, the Department of Transportation has quietly rolled back regulations meant to make the flying experience easier for people in wheelchairs and with other disabilities.
And many people with disabilities say the delay or pause on rules is actively making their lives worse. Specifically, the Trump administration has delayed rules regarding the handling of passengers in wheelchairs and making lavatories more accessible.
“I just think that with everything else that we have to worry about, it is crazy that he is going–that this is what he’s choosing to prioritize,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a wheelchair user and a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, told The Political Spectrum.
In 2024, Congress passed the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act. The legislation mandated the secretary of Transportation to develop requirements to train airline personnel and contractors who assist wheelchair and scooter users. It also mandated the department to create requirements for personnel and contractors who stow wheelchairs and scooters on planes. It also required that these workers complete a refresher training within 18 months of the training and conduct be recertified every 18 months.
On Dec. 17, 2024, the department under the Biden administration, led by then-Secretary Pete Buttigieg, issued the final rule ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
But on Sept. 30, 2025, the Department of Transportation, now under the stewardship of Secretary Sean Duffy, announced that it would delay implementation of four aspects of the rule.
Specifically, it would delay implementation of airlines’ liability when wheelchairs or mobility devices are not timely returned in the condition they were received; the frequency that personnel receive the training; a requirement that airlines notify passengers with wheelchairs of their rights including the right to file a claim if their wheelchair is mishandled; and a requirement that airlines reimburse a disabled passenger on the difference between the fare a wheelchair user took and the fare on a flight a passenger in a wheelchair would have taken had if their wheelchair or scooter could have fit in the cargo or cabin compartment of a plane.
The announcement came after five major airlines–American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, and United–filed a lawsuit challenging the rule, saying parts of it exceeded the department’s statutory authority.
The Department of Transportation said in a statement that airlines remain “fully responsible for returning wheelchairs in the condition received and paying to repair or replace devices damaged while in their custody.”
“The Department remains committed to protecting travelers with disabilities,” the official said.
Maria Town, the president and chief executive of the American Association of People with Disabilities, told The Political Spectrum that most of the rule remains in tact.
“What I don’t want people to think is that these rights no longer exist,” she said.
At the same time, Duckworth said that she has personally experienced life before and after the rule. The Illinois senator, who lost both of her legs after she was shot down in a Blackhawk helicopter while serving in Iraq, said she felt more comfortable with her wheelchairs after the December 2024 announcement of the rule.
“But since they wrote back the rules, I’ve had two different airlines break my chair in a such a significant way that it was no longer usable and had to be replaced,” she said.
But the Trump administration slow-walked another rule for disabled travelers. On August 1, 2023, the Department of Transportation announced a final rule to make lavatories on single-aisle aircrafts more accessible.
The rule required that lavatories must have grab bars, accessible faucets, controls, call buttons, minimum obstruction to the passage of an on-board wheelchair, toe clearance and an available visual barrier for privacy.
The final rule also stipulated that on-board wheelchairs must have safe transfer to and from an airplane seat, have locking wheels, adequate padding, supports and restraints and the wheelchair must be maneuverable to the lavatory so the door can be completely closed.
It also required staff go through annual training for on-board wheelchair use and stowage as well as assisting passengers to and from the lavatory in the wheelchair. If a lavatory could not accommodate a transfer from an onboard wheelchair, the international symbol of accessibility would need to be removed. In addition, airlines needed to develop a procedure for handling bio-waste as well as “sharps” such as needles or syringes.
Perhaps the most consequential was a requirement to expand the size of lavatories to allow for a person with a disability and their attendant to use one.
Emily Voorde, who worked on Buttigieg’s presidential campaign and as a liason to people with disabilities in the Biden administration, told The Political Spectrum that the rule was incredibly consequential.
“Presently, the reality is, as a wheelchair user, I am unable to use the laboratory on the vast majority of commercial flights that I’m on”,” Voorde said.
The rule was set to take effect on Oct. 2, 2026. But on Aug. 4 2026, the Department of Transportation announced that it would delay enforcement of the part of the rule that requires personnel to receive training every twelve months.
The announcement said this came after one carrier based in the United States requested flexibility in its enforcement after it received approval from the FAA to conduct certain training every 18 months instead of every twelve months.
“Regarding accessible lavatories, the broad physical accessibility requirements under the Accessible Lavatories rule remain fully intact,” the department said in a statement to The Political Spectrum. “The August enforcement notice applied solely to the frequency of flight attendant recurrent hands-on training to align with FAA-approved safety training schedules.”
But Town criticized the delay in the lavatory rule.
“We have been waiting on this lavatory rule to be in effect for over a decade,” she said. “And people with disabilities either have to monitor their bodily intake so closely when they fly that they starve themselves, that they dehydrate themselves, and in doing so, risk kidney failure because so many of us can’t go to the bathroom when we’re on a flight.”
She also said that the delay will make it difficult for the regulation to catch up to changes in aircrafts.
“For airplane manufacturers to transition to new lavatory designs is not a simple nor a fast process, and I think advocates have understood that for a long time,” Town said. “But delaying the enforcement of this regulation, it slows down what is already an incredibly slow process.”
Voorde, who uses a wheelchair, said that the move caused physical difficulties for people in wheelchairs.
“I’ve scooted on the floor of an airplane before to use the restroom, when I truly could not wait,” she said. “Think about how degrading and disgusting that is.”
Voorde also criticized how these regulation delays came without viable alternatives.
“It’s just like, ‘No, no. We’re gonna keep reviewing these comments, and we’re still thinking about it,’” she said. “It’s like, ‘okay, well, we’ll wait indefinitely.’”
Writing Hither and Yonder: My column in MS NOW on how being Senate majority leader is a thankless job.
What I’m reading: Casey Parks in The Washington Post writes about a study that revealed that 97 percent of transgender people said starting hormone replacement therapy was the right decision. To know more about Emily Voorde, read Sara Luterman’s profile of Voorde in The 19th News from 2024. Adria Walker in The Guardian on the coalition that elected Scott Colom in Mississippi.
If you watch one speech: Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) spoke about the emotional and financial caring for father with Alzheimer’s disease at the What’s Next conference for Democrats in Denver. Kim has proposed a plan to Medicaid coverage for children called MediKids. Curious if he will do anything on home care along the lines of former vice president Kamala Harris’s plan to have Medicare pay for home care.
Your regular Bam Bam post:
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