BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the
temporary measure to extend the authorization of the FAA today, but I
do so with great disappointment. We could be on the floor today to
enact a longer term FAA reauthorization bill.
In the last 2 years, the Subcommittee on Aviation, led by my
colleague from New Jersey, Mr. LoBiondo, has held 16 hearings on a
variety of topics. We have heard from stakeholders that there is a long
list of things that we need to do to stay competitive with our economic
rivals and keep our airspace the safest and most efficient in the
world:
We need to reform aircraft certification so that manufacturers can
get the newest, safest equipment to market.
We need to set clear rules for unmanned aerial vehicles and
accelerate efforts for their safe use.
We need to advance NextGen programs to move air traffic faster and
more efficiently.
Chairman Shuster, Chairman LoBiondo, Ranking Member DeFazio, and I
have achieved a bipartisan agreement on most of these major key issues
that we need to address. That bill is ready to go.
We didn't hear during these hearings that we needed to privatize air
traffic control. Now, some people want to privatize air traffic
control. I know that they want to do this in good faith. But we don't
need to do it, and it is preventing the things that we need to do from
getting done.
An entire bipartisan bill is being held up because we can't agree yet
on the details of what would be a very complex proposal. I fail to
understand why at this juncture such a proposal is necessary,
particularly when it prevents significant and much-needed reform from
taking place.
There is no dispute that today we safely operate the most complex and
congested airspace in the world. Last year the Government
Accountability Office asked 76 aviation stakeholders whether the FAA is
capable of operating an efficient air traffic control system. The
overwhelming majority, 64 of those, said the FAA is, in fact, capable
of doing so. Privatizing the current system is clearly not a pressing
need. It is a want.
I wish I could say today I am surprised that we find ourselves here
today, but many people have been saying for a long time that this was
the situation that we would be facing on September 30. In fact, when we
held a hearing on air traffic privatization back in March, I predicted
we were headed down this road of multiple short-term reauthorizations.
The bipartisan portions of the bill that Chairman Shuster, Chairman
LoBiondo, Ranking Member DeFazio, and I have agreed to would have
immediate benefits all over the country.
In my home State of Washington, it would protect and create American
jobs through airport construction and aerospace manufacturing; it would
improve aviation safety; it would improve the way the aircraft and
parts are certified to get newer and safer technology to market; it
would build on the safety improvements that this body has made
following the tragic Colgan flight 3407 in 2009; it would improve the
regulation and the development of unmanned aerial systems, which
continue to proliferate in our airspace.
We need a strong regulatory system in place to safely grow the
unmanned aircraft industry, and until we act, that system cannot be in
place. For every day of this extension, travelers and the aerospace
industry will not receive the improvements and protections that we have
crafted in the bipartisan portions of the bill that we are close to
agreeing on. We will continue to fall behind other countries that are
making similar improvements.
As many lawmakers and aviation stakeholders recall, the last FAA
reauthorization bill came after a period of 5 years and 23 short-term
extensions. I had hoped we would avoid serial extensions this time
around, but today we start down that path.
Yes, it is with disappointment that I am here to support a temporary
extension and strongly urge all my colleagues to make sure this is the
only temporary extension before enactment of a long-term bill.
We have a long list of things that we need to do today to improve our
airspace. We should focus on those things instead of the things only
that we want to do.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT