Washington, D.C.—The following are opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, from Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen (D-WA) during today’s hearing titled, “FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024: An Update on Implementation One Year Later.”
Find video of Ranking Member Larsen’s opening statement here.
More information on the hearing can be found here.
Ranking Member Larsen:
Thank you, Chairman Graves, for calling today’s oversight hearing on the implementation of the landmark 2024 FAA Reauthorization law.
One year ago, Congress took decisive action to improve aviation safety, foster aerospace innovation, grow our workforce and better protect the flying public.
While the FAA is making some progress in implementing the law, recent tragic aviation accidents and close calls make clear that the Administration must prioritize the critical safety reforms included in the reauthorization.
The immense loss that occurred from the tragic mid-air collision at Washington National Airport (DCA) highlights the need for the FAA and Congress to recommit to enhancing the safety of the national airspace system (NAS) and restoring the flying public’s confidence in that system.
Unfortunately, recent events have shown the problems we are seeing in the aviation industry extend much further than the issues that led to the heartbreaking plane crash on January 29.
Shortly after this crash, there were several other fatal commercial crashes or safety accidents in Alaska, Philadelphia, Arizona and other places around the country.
In the last six weeks alone, there have been an ongoing series of high profile, troubling accidents, including:
- A helicopter conducting commercial air tours crashing into the Hudson River;
- Two loss of separation events at DCA between a Blackhawk helicopter and a commercial airline flight;
- The wingtip of a Bombardier CRJ900 striking an Embraer E175 on the taxiway at DCA;
- The FAA’s NOTAM system—which provides essential real-time updates on conditions affecting flight safety—experiencing sudden outages; and
- At least three separate instances of air traffic control (ATC) equipment failures affecting Newark Airport alone, resulting in hundreds of delays and cancellations.
The American people are justifiably outraged and demand the FAA do more to make our system safer and more reliable, and we want to help.
The U.S. strives to be the gold standard in aviation safety. But that statement can ring hollow when there are almost daily reports of serious close calls or ATC system failures.
One of the most immediate and effective long-term solutions the FAA can do right now to make our system safer is to swiftly implement the 2024 FAA Reauthorization law.
That law, passed in a bipartisan manner, provides the FAA with a five-year roadmap on how the Administration can address many of the safety issues we’ve recently seen.
We gave you the what needs to be done list, and now we’re in the how-to stage, and it’s up to the FAA to implement.
For instance, earlier this week it was reported that the flight delays out of Newark Airport were in part due to only three controllers being on duty at the time, even though the staffing target was 14.
Although the FAA is working to hire the maximum number of controllers from the agency’s ATC training academy, as required by the law, the Agency has yet to modernize staffing models for controllers and other aviation safety roles to meet the evolving needs of the NAS.
There have also been several recent near misses and runway incursions at airports across the country, including DCA, Seattle, Chicago and Boston.
The reauthorization law requires the FAA to establish the Runway Safety Council, which would develop new strategies to address airport surface safety risks, identify and deploy airport surface surveillance technologies to all large and medium hub airports and conduct a review of existing systems to assess how legacy technologies can be improved.
And the law could help prevent future ATC disruptions—such as the recent NOTAM outage and numerous ATC system failures that have recently impacted Newark Airport—through its requirement that FAA audit its legacy ATC systems and make immediate improvements to any system deemed outdated or unsafe.
To be clear, there are policies the FAA should be considering that were not included in the law.
For instance, just last week, the Secretary announced a proposal that will help fund the modernization of new ATC facilities, systems and equipment. We have yet to receive a proposed budget for this proposal and such an important and costly plan will require vigorous oversight, but I do encourage Committee members to look at what the Secretary is proposing because I believe that it is a very positive step forward.
I look forward to working with Chairman Graves to develop bipartisan legislation that will help modernize our ATC system.
Unfortunately, the Administration’s actions to shrink the federal workforce will undermine the FAA’s ability to implement the reauthorization law and could jeopardize aviation safety.
For instance, over the last several months, the Administration has fired several hundred FAA probationary employees, signed buyouts with over 4,000 DOT employees—nearly half of which are from the FAA—and threatened FAA and other employees with unproductive email requests.
And earlier this month, the Administration announced it will conduct additional layoffs at DOT.
These layoffs could prevent, not just the implementation of critical safety reforms included in the FAA reauthorization but also prevent DOT from fixing the various challenges currently plaguing our aviation system.
So, one question that is very clear that I need to ask is how can the Administration expect to fix our ATC system when it is pushing out the very people that support, operate and maintain the ATC system? Grow the workforce, invest in deploying safety technologies, protect the flying public, this Administration must stay focused on implementation of the law as we passed it.
To grow the aviation workforce, invest in deploying safety critical technologies, and protect the flying public, this Administration must stay focused on implementing the 2024 FAA Reauthorization.
The many reports of aviation incidents are a solemn reminder that we can no longer delay fixing issues that we have the power to solve now.
Today is an opportunity to learn more about how the FAA is implementing the law and other actions the agency must take to ensure safer skies for the flying public.