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| | Biographical Sketches of the Secretaries of Transportation |
 | | On December 1, 1972, President Richard Nixon chose Claude Stout Brinegar, age forty-five, to succeed Volpe, and become the nation's third Secretary of Transportation. |
 | | While Secretary, Brinegar confronted railroad revitalization and proposed regulatory reforms that the collapse of the Northeastern railroads made necessary, reauthorization of the federal highway program, and the impact of transportation on energy consumption and the environment, triggered by the energy shortage of 1973-74. |
 | | When Gerald Ford said that he intended to seek the Presidency in his own right, Brinegar, not wanting to be part of a reelection campaign, resigned, effective February 1, 1975, and returned to the Union Oil Company, where he was elected senior vice president and member of the Executive Committee. |
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