FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. Van HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 658. While we need a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, today's legislation takes us in the wrong direction.

Our nation's aviation infrastructure critically needs rehabilitation. On its 2009 Report Card on America's Infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave aviation infrastructure a ``D.'' Investments in improvements--to renovate runways, taxiways, and terminals and to implement the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to modernize air traffic control--would enhance passenger safety and reduce delays. They also create jobs--approximately 35,000 jobs per $1 billion of investment.

However, rather than making the improvements our aviation system requires, this bill cuts funding back to FY2008 levels--a $1 billion cut in the first year alone. And funding would stay level, despite increasing need, each year until FY2014. Cuts to the Airport Improvement Program alone would cost our nation 70,000 jobs over the next four years.

This bill's funding reductions have a very real impact for passengers. Cutbacks to FAA operations could result in furloughs for hundreds of safety inspectors and slow certification of new equipment. A reduced budget could also postpone needed investments in air traffic control towers, lighting systems, and navigational aids. And the delays to NextGen implementation will result in more delays, more gridlock, and more runway incursions that endanger passengers.

Additionally, this bill contains a poison pill--one that neither the President nor the Senate will accept. It repeals a National Mediation Board rule, finalized last year, which allows workers to organize based on a majority of votes cast--the same way members of Congress are elected. Under this legislation, if a worker does not cast a ballot in a union election, he or she would be counted as a ``no'' vote. This is unfair and undemocratic.

Mr. Chair, our aviation infrastructure has serious needs. We need a serious bill to address them. Let's end arbitrary and damaging cuts and poison pill provisions and consider a bill that puts Americans to work rebuilding our nation.

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