December 20, 2016

Over 100 Members of Congress Urge President-Elect Trump to Protect American Jobs and Security, Reject NAI

December 20, 2016

 

 

The Honorable Donald J. Trump

The President-elect

1717 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20006

 

Dear Mr. President-elect:

 

            On December 2, 2016, the Department of Transportation (DOT) made a grievously wrong decision to grant Norwegian Air International a foreign air carrier permit for U.S.-Europe air services. Given your commitment to protecting American jobs and our national security, we strongly urge you, on Day One of your presidency, to revoke or suspend the permit until Norwegian changes its business model to a model that does not rely on a flag of convenience and threaten America’s international aviation industry and our national security.

 

Norwegian is “Norwegian” in name only: Its crews work under short-term contracts, many governed under Singapore law; some crewmembers are based in Bangkok; and the company is organized and regulated in Ireland. It is, for all intents and purposes, a virtual airline. Norwegian is the first airline in the transatlantic market to fly under a flag of convenience, but the Department’s recent decision guarantees Norwegian will not be the last.

 

If the DOT’s decision stands, other airlines are likely to follow suit and organize subsidiaries in foreign countries with lax labor laws, tax loopholes, or weak safety and security oversight. Global civil aviation will devolve into a system that relies on flags of convenience. This race to the bottom will threaten the viability of U.S. airlines and their fleets of widebody aircraft that comprise the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). Under the CRAF program, airlines volunteer parts of their fleets for military use during national emergencies and in times of war. More than 130 widebody aircraft in the United States’ three major long-haul carriers’ fleets were available for mobilization by the Department of Defense under the CRAF program as of January 2016. However, if U.S. carriers find themselves unable to compete with other airlines that copy Norwegian’s flag-of-convenience business model, U.S. airlines will downsize their widebody fleets, and our ability to move troops and materiel will suffer substantially. National security, as well as American jobs, is on the line.

 

The U.S.-E.U.-Iceland-Norway Open Skies agreement opened the transatlantic aviation market. Norwegian and every airline in the market benefit from the right under the agreement to fly from anywhere in the United States to anywhere in Europe. In creating this lucrative right, however, the agreement included protections to ensure fairness in the transatlantic aviation market.

 

The DOT ignored those protections, as well as well-established law prohibiting a decision inconsistent with those protections, in granting Norwegian’s permit, and our country will pay a price for that failure of responsibility. We will pay that price as we watch a race to the bottom among airlines that are forced to compete with Norwegian. Moreover, while Norwegian chose the safe harbor of a country whose labor laws permit forum-shopping for the cheapest labor, the next airline to fly under a flag of convenience may choose the safe harbor of an opportunistic country with weak safety and security regulations, with serious consequences for safety and national security.

 

We strongly urge you to correct the Department’s mistake. We urge you, on Day One of your presidency, to start the process necessary to revoke or suspend Norwegian’s permit.

 

Thank you for your consideration of our views.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Peter DeFazio                                                         Frank A. LoBiondo

Ranking Member                                                    Member of Congress

 

              Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Rick Larsen                                                             John Katko

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Marcy Kaptur                                                          Peter J. Visclosky

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

John Lewis                                                              Fred Upton

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Frank Pallone, Jr.                                                    José E. Serrano

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Rosa DeLauro                                                         Collin Peterson

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Jerrold Nadler                                                         Xavier Becerra

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Anna G. Eshoo                                                        Alcee L. Hastings

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Eddie Bernice Johnson                                           Lucille Roybal-Allard

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Nydia Velazquez                                                      Mike Thompson

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Michael F. Doyle                                                      Walter Jones

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Zoe Lofgren                                                            Elijah Cummings

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Diana DeGette                                                        Ron Kind

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Jim McGovern                                                        Bill Pascrell, Jr.

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Pete Sessions                                                           Adam Smith

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Barbara Lee                                                            Robert A. Brady

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Michael E. Capuano                                               Joe Crowley

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Grace F. Napolitano                                                Janice D. Schakowsky

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

James R. Langevin                                                 Betty McCollum

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Stephen F. Lynch                                                    C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Tim Ryan                                                                 Linda T. Sánchez

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

David Scott                                                             Brian Higgins

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Daniel Lipinski                                                        Gwen Moore

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Albio Sires                                                               Keith Ellison

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr.                                 David Loebsack

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Ed Perlmutter                                                          Peter Welch

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Jackie Speier                                                                 Richard M. Nolan

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Gerald E. Connolly                                                  Duncan Hunter

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Ben Ray Lujan                                                         Paul D. Tonko

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Mike Quigley                                                           Judy Chu

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

John Garamendi                                                      Mike Fitzpatrick

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Bill Foster                                                                Mo Brooks

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Bob Gibbs                                                               William R. Keating

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

David McKinley                                                      James B. Renacci

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Suzanne Bonamici                                                  Suzan DelBene

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Donald M. Payne, Jr.                                               Alan Grayson

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Julia Brownley                                                        Tony Cardenas

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Elizabeth H. Esty                                                     Paul Cook

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Rodney Davis                                                          Lois Frankel

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Jared Huffman                                                         Hakeem Jeffries

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

David P. Joyce                                                         Alan Lowenthal

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Michelle Lujan Grisham                                          Sean Patrick Maloney

Member of Congress                                             Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Scott Peters                                                            Mark Pocan

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Kyrsten Sinema                                                       Alma S. Adams

Member of Congress                                            Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Donald Norcross                                                     Mike Bost

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Brendan F. Boyle                                                    Ryan A. Costello

Member of Congress                                             Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Carlos Curbelo                                                        Mark DeSaulnier

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Debbie Dingell                                                        Ruben Gallego

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Ted W. Lieu                                                              Seth Moulton

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Kathleen M. Rice                                                    Lee Zeldin

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Madeleine Z. Bordallo                                            Eleanor Holmes Norton

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________

Stacey E. Plaskett

Member of Congress

 

____________________                                            ____________________

Louise Slaughter                                                     Lou Barletta

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress

 

____________________                                           ____________________                                   

Sander M. Levin                                                      Jared Polis

Member of Congress                                              Member of Congress