Peters became the Bush administration's second Transportation chief in September 2006, after four years as head of the Federal Highway Administration and before that three years running the Arizona Department of Transportation. Her preferred mode of travel is on the back of a motorcycle, but during her final months in office she's focusing on planes: namely, securing a congressional overhaul of federal aviation programs.

Q. What have you been thinking as Congress has stalled over its rewrite of aviation law?

A. We're limping along with these 90-day extensions, which is absurd. It's frustrating because we know it can be so much better.

Q. How can it be better?

A. The system is a relic of the past. There's a whole bunch of airspace we're not using. If we move to a satellite-based system, a GPS-based system, we can make much greater use of the skies because we won't have these artificial highways.

Q. Is there much opposition to that idea?