Senators Bond-Murray Host Aerospace Luncheon Featuring Secretary LaHood

Statement

U.S. Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Patty Murray (D-WA) today hosted a Senate Aerospace Caucus luncheon entitled "NextGen Modernization -- Tomorrow's Airspace Today!" Featured at today's event was guest speaker the Honorable Raymond LaHood, Secretary of Transportation. Bond and Murray formed the Aerospace Caucus earlier this year as a bipartisan effort to protect and advocate for a strong, secure and competitive American aerospace industry. U.S. Senator Kit Bond made the following remarks at today's event:

Thank you all for being here today. Thank you Marion for the kind introduction. Your leadership as Aerospace Industries Association's CEO has helped pave the way for a great start to this newly formed Senate Aerospace Caucus. So far, the caucus has enjoyed very relevant and productive events, with high profile guest speakers, including Air Force Secretary Donley, the President's National Security Advisor, General Jones and now the Secretary of Transportation, the Honorable Ray LaHood. Secretary LaHood, I thank you for being here today and am excited to be discussing such an important topic as NextGen modernization.

As a frequent flyer, I have experienced far too many airport delays and have spent more time in holding patterns over Washington and Missouri than I care to remember. Unfortunately, as any frequent flyer can tell you, air travel has become increasingly unpredictable, of course this inconvenience for passengers hasn't even put a dent in demand -- which continues to grow and grow. I am confident that NextGen will be an answer to both the increased hassles and delays, and the ever increasing demand for air travel.

As the folks in this room know, NextGen is the term we use for the ongoing and much needed overhaul of our national airspace system. This transformation of our current system will make air travel more convenient and dependable, while ensuring flights are safer, more secure and as hassle-free as possible.

Recent estimates indicate that by 2018, NextGen will reduce total flight delays by 21 percent and provide $22 billion in cumulative benefits to the traveling public, aircraft operators and the FAA. During this same period, an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of fuel from air traffic operations alone will be saved, cutting carbon emissions by nearly 14 million tons.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there are very few things in Washington or on Capitol Hill -- especially right now -- which we can all agree, Republicans and Democrats, Congress and the Administration, government and industry, is a win-win, but NextGen is one of those few issues.

Looking ahead, I look forward to government and industry working together in implementing this much needed overhaul of the national airspace system and to our continued work to pass a much needed FAA reauthorization bill.

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