Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007
TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, THE JUDICIARY, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - June 14, 2006)
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Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today with other colleagues to offer an amendment prohibiting the FAA from eliminating, consolidating, colocating or planning to consolidate or colocate any terminal radar control centers which are referred to as TRACONs.
The TRACON system guides planes within a 40-mile radius of the airport on their takeoffs and final approaches.
In an effort to save money, the FAA has embarked on an ambitious consolidation and collocation plan which will significantly limit our air traffic capacities in the future.
The FAA's current consolidation proposal seeks to eliminate 14 of 24 TRACONs in 9 States across the United States. In some instances, entire States will be left without any approach radar system within their borders. In other instances, consolidation runs the risk of placing undue stress on nearby TRACONs already having to deal with larger airspaces and staffing shortfalls.
For example, under the FAA's plan, the TRACON in Boise, Idaho, will be consolidated into a TRACON in Salt Lake City, Utah. This will leave the entire State of Idaho with no TRACON at all, and controllers in Utah will be directing approaching aircraft into Idaho airports, well over 300 miles away.
In Florida, the FAA is planning to consolidate the TRACONs of Miami International, Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International, and Palm Beach International airports, all within a Federal high risk urban area, into one TRACON.
Once this plan is implemented, if a terrorist attack or a natural disaster were to strike the Miami TRACON, then all three major international airports would lose their approach radar system. Controllers in Jacksonville, which is more than 350 miles away, would be where they would be controlled.
Finally, the southern California TRACON, the busiest in the country, reported 12 close calls between January and May 31 of this year. This total is up from only seven close calls during the same period last year.
Just imagine if southern California controllers already operating in a high risk urban area and facing staffing shortfalls have to direct their daily workload of more than 6,000 flights and those flights in a nearby region.
Mr. Chairman, this is not a question of whether or not consolidation can logistically be done. It can be done and it is being done. On the contrary, this is a question of what should Congress be willing to risk for consolidation to occur?
The FAA's consolidation of TRACONs runs the grave risk of leaving our air traffic system vulnerable during critical times.
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Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I thank the ranking member for yielding to me. And let me answer quickly what the FAA is weighing in closing some of air traffic control facilities. Reno would go to northern California. Fresno and Bakersfield would go to Las Vegas. Pensacola would go to Meridian, Mississippi--excuse me, Gulfport would go to Meridian and Tallahassee would go to Pensacola. Lincoln would go to Omaha, and Dayton and Columbus would go to Cleveland. Those are just some of the suggestions.
Why I asked for time, Mr. Olver, is to respond to my good friend from Orlando and central Florida to tell him that I don't think this proposal is bogus at all. I don't think that he can demonstrate to me that Orlando and Jacksonville are ready to handle, either in the event of a natural disaster or a destruction in the nature of the kind of disasters that we prepare for in our homeland, that it would allow, among other things, that it would be a smooth transition. I don't believe that to be the case. Workload is simply added to those facilities where they don't exist today because those centers will be completely gone if the FAA gets its way.
Simply put, during these critical times we should not be limiting our air traffic capacity, and I believe that that is what my amendment remedies. And I certainly didn't bring it here with any thought in mind of it being bogus. All the air traffic controllers that have contacted my office and expressed their concerns, I don't consider them bogus.
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