Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters told attendees at the Goldwater Institute’s forum on transportation last week that she is in favor of changes in existing public-private partnership legislation to attract private-sector investments for transportation.
Peters, who returned two weeks ago from Washington, D.C., and hasn’t made her next career move, said she doesn’t know how Gov. Jan Brewer feels about the issue, but said she looks forward to an opportunity to talk with the governor and others in the Legislature about the opportunities out there for taking advantage of private money available to be invested for transportation funding for the state.
Peters, who served in the Bush administration for six years, said she’s living in Arizona permanently now and is looking to forward to consulting work, board work and public speaking engagements. Asked if she plans to run for office in Arizona, Peters said she would consider it, noting she was seriously considering entering the governor’s race in 2010, but because circumstances have changed with Brewer moving up to the Ninth Floor, she’s going to defer to Brewer and try to support her in any way she can.
“Governor Brewer, who is a good friend and a very good, competent person, I’m going to defer to her and maybe in the future, I might look and see what might open up," Peters said. She was on a panel with: Bill Owens, former governor of Colorado; Mike Krusee, chairman of the Texas House Transportation Committee; and Gary Groat, director of project management for Fluor Enterprises.