Elaine Chao
American government official
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| February 2024 | Angela, Elaine Chao's sister, died after backing her car into a pond. |
| 2023 | In January 2023, Elaine Chao responded to Trump's racist attacks, stating that 'people had deliberately misspelled or mispronounced' her name and highlighting the hard work of Asian Americans to change that experience for future generations. |
| 2022 | From July 2022 onward, former President Trump criticized Mitch McConnell's leadership on social media and directed racist attacks at Elaine Chao. |
| 2021 | In 2021, Elaine Chao joined the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. |
| 2021 | Elaine Chao began serving on the board of directors for ChargePoint, an electric charger network provider. |
| 2021 | Chao publicly spoke out against incidents of anti-Asian harassment, highlighting her stance on combating racism in the wake of increased violence against Asian Americans. |
| August 2021 | In August 2021, Elaine Chao was elected to the board of directors of the Kroger supermarket chain. |
| March 4 2021 | The Inspector General released a report outlining numerous ethics violations by Chao, including using department resources for personal errands, and referred its findings for potential criminal prosecution, which the Justice Department ultimately declined to pursue. |
| January 7 2021 | Elaine Chao submitted her resignation as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, effective January 11, 2021, following the January 6 United States Capitol attack. She was the highest-ranking member of the administration to resign due to the riots. |
| 2020 | Chao worked to allow truckers to deliver essential goods to New York City, leading to the withdrawal of the city's 14-day quarantine requirement for out-of-state truckers after federal government pressure. |
| 2020 | Chao announced the disbursement of $1.2 billion in grants to 405 airports for infrastructure and safety improvements as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| 2020 | Under the CARES Act, Chao's Department of Transportation had $114 billion made available for the transportation sector, with significant allocations including $25 billion for public transit systems. |
| May 2020 | Elaine Chao sternly warned airlines to adhere to their published ticket refund procedures and Department of Transportation regulations, insisting on cash refunds instead of vouchers when required by law due to the COVID-19 outbreak. |
| May 2020 | The Trump administration removed acting Inspector General Mitch Behm, who was investigating Chao for potential preferential treatment towards transportation projects in Kentucky, amid her husband’s re-election campaign. |
| 2019 | The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an air carrier and operator certificate to UPS Flight Forward for drone deliveries to a hospital campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. |
| 2019 | Elaine Chao led the U.S. presidential delegation to the enthronement ceremony for Japanese emperor Naruhito. |
| December 2019 | After multiple reports of unidentified objects flying in formation at night, the FAA proposed a new rule requiring drones to be remotely identifiable, under Elaine Chao's leadership. |
| October 2019 | Elaine Chao launched the Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success (ROUTES) initiative to improve rural transportation infrastructure, focusing on the unique needs of rural transportation networks. |
| September 2019 | The House Committee on Oversight and Reform began investigating Chao for allegations of using her political office to benefit her family's business interests, including the cancellation of a planned trip to China. |
| June 2019 | Politico reported that Chao had designated her aide Todd Inman as a special liaison to assist with transportation projects in Kentucky, which resulted in at least $78 million in grants benefiting areas associated with her husband, Mitch McConnell. |
| June 3 2019 | Elaine Chao sold her deferred stock units from Vulcan Materials for a gain of $50,000 after it was reported that she still held the stock despite pledging to divest by April 2018. |
| May 2019 | Gordon Hartogensis, Elaine Chao's brother-in-law, was appointed as the director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) in the U.S. Department of Labor. |
| April 2019 | The FAA released proposed new regulations to modernize rules for commercial space flight launches and reentries. |
| March 2019 | Elaine Chao announced the formation of the Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council, aimed at identifying jurisdictional and regulatory gaps for new transportation technologies. |
| 2018 | Ten applicants were selected to participate in Elaine Chao's drone pilot program. |
| 2017 | Elaine Chao announced the establishment of a pilot program to test and evaluate the integration of civil and public drone operations into the airspace system. |
| 2017 | Elaine Chao was appointed as the United States Secretary of Transportation in the administration of President Donald Trump, serving until 2021. |
| February 2017 | Elaine Chao was reported by the Associated Press to have been paid by a speaker's bureau to give a speech regarding women's empowerment to an organization linked to the People's Mujahedin of Iran. |
| January 31 2017 | The U.S. Senate confirmed Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation by a vote of 93–6. |
| November 29 2016 | U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced his nomination of Elaine Chao to be Secretary of Transportation. |
| 2015 | Elaine Chao was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Georgetown McDonough School of Business. |
| January 2015 | Elaine Chao resigned from the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which she had joined in 2012. |
| 2014 | In the two years leading up to the 2014 U.S. Senate elections, Elaine Chao headlined fifty of her own events and attended hundreds more to support her husband, Mitch McConnell, in his reelection campaign against Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. |
| 2014 | Chao led the U.S. delegation to the inauguration of Indonesia's President Joko Widodo. |
| 2014 | The wrongful death suit by the widows of two miners killed in the Alma Mine fire was settled, and MSHA agreed to develop a training course on preventing fires in underground mines. |
| 2013 | Elaine Chao was the subject of controversial tweets by the SuperPAC Progress Kentucky, which made derogatory comments about her Asian ethnicity and alleged her connection to job losses in the U.S. due to China. |
| 2013 | An appeals court ruled that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) can be held liable when a negligent inspection causes the wrongful death of a coal miner. |
| 2012 | The Chao family donated $40 million to Harvard Business School for scholarships for students of Chinese heritage and for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, which was named after Elaine Chao's late mother. |
| June 2011 | Elaine Chao was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Elaine Chao, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.