FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012--Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I am down here to speak in favor of the FAA reauthorization conference report that the Senate will vote on shortly. I thank Chairman Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison for their great work on this piece of legislation--a long time coming. It has not been reauthorized since 2007, so it has been a long time coming. So I am very excited about this opportunity.

I think it is maybe a new trend for the year. Last week we passed the STOCK Act, and today hopefully we will pass the FAA bill. There has been a lot of work, a lot of compromise on these two pieces of legislation and this one particularly today.

The last time Congress actually passed a comprehensive FAA bill was in 2003. The bill expired in 2007. Since then, the FAA has been operating on 23 short-term extensions. These temporary extensions have been detrimental. They have prevented progress on modernizing our air traffic control. I speak as someone who just literally flew in a couple of hours ago overnight from Alaska. We clearly understand air traffic. They did not give airports funding certainty for planning, runway, and safety improvements, and they resulted in a brief shutdown in which 4,000 FAA employees were furloughed for almost 2 weeks last summer. It is far past time that Congress pass a comprehensive FAA reauthorization bill.

While this bill is significant for the entire country, it is particularly important for my residents, the residents of aviation in Alaska, and residents overall. It is truly a lifeblood. When you think of aviation, it is our highway in the sky. Alaska has 6 times more pilots and 16 times more aircraft per capita than the rest of the United States. More than 80 percent of our communities are not on the road system. So aviation is the only reliable year-round means of transportation.

This conference report invests over $13 billion in our airport infrastructure over the next 4 years. Let me underline that--$13 billion in the next 4 years. This is about jobs. It is about improving airport safety. In an economy that is slowly recovering and on the right track, this will add to the needed jobs in the construction industry but also make sure that we put them to work in areas such as aviation which are critically needed. It will improve our runways, create more safety projects in our airports and our runway areas, yet safely accommodate the higher traffic levels while putting tens of thousands of Americans to work.

This bill invests in and accelerates the deployment of the NextGen modernization of our air traffic control system, as you have heard described already. We have been using a World War II-era radar technology for our air traffic control. Transition to more accurate satellite-based tracking will allow for more direct routes between destinations, reducing fuel use and saving airlines money.

The backbone of this technology, called ADS-B, was proven in Alaska as part of the capstone project. So we are excited that we were the incubator for such an important element of our aviation, and now to see it accelerated and moved throughout the whole industry will be a huge benefit to the consumer.

For Alaskans, it contains an amendment which I offered and was cosponsored by Senator Murkowski, providing relief for a one-size-fits-all rulemaking. That rule inadvertently prevented the shipment of compressed oxygen needed for medical and construction purposes in rural Alaska.

This legislation also contains a special provision that Senator Coburn from Oklahoma and I sponsored called the orphan earmarks provision. It repeals earmarks for aviation projects if less than 10 percent of the earmark has not been used after 9 years. It saves millions of dollars on stalled projects so that we can direct those limited resources where they can have the greatest bang for the dollar.

This conference report makes significant investments in the Essential Air Service Program--otherwise known as EAS--which serves rural and isolated areas. Forty-four communities in Alaska will continue to receive a minimal level of scheduled passenger service. There are sensible reforms that will exclude communities in the lower 48 with fewer than 10 passengers per day.

The House FAA bill proposed to make truly Draconian cuts to the EAS Program. I wish to thank Chair Rockefeller particularly for his effort to make sure that rural communities throughout America and Alaska continue to receive the access they need to airspace and travel from their small communities. For the general aviation community, this bill contains no new user fees. Let me repeat that--no new user fees for general aviation.

There is aviation community funding for research into an unleaded fuel substitute which one day may replace avgas. There are incentives for ADS-B equipment.

I will continue to work with my copartner on the general aviation caucus, Senator Johanns, to make sure that aviation policies are mindful of the significant role general aviation plays not only in my State of Alaska but throughout this country.

For our airline passengers, this conference report includes a passengers' bill of rights championed by Senators Boxer and Snowe. It codifies commonsense approaches and changes, such as making sure passengers have adequate food and water and lavatory access if delayed on the tarmac and options to deplane if the flight has been excessively delayed.

It is not a perfect bill. I was disappointed that the conference report contains language pertaining to the National Mediation Board and the rules governing union organizing. It is not relevant to the underlying bill. It was not included in the bill the Senate passed last year. We understand this was a necessary compromise for the House leadership to allow this long-stalled bill to move forward. Again, it is not an appropriate element to this bill, but recognizing that the overall bill is critical to the long-term health of our aviation industry and the passengers of this country, we can take comfort from the fact that we added over 30 provisions in this conference report that will improve conditions for aviation workers.

I firmly believe the controversial NMB language has no place in this bill.

I also recognize it is time to move forward.

I wish to recognize again the leadership of Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison of the Senate Commerce Committee and their tireless work. They never gave up. Their staffs continued to work and to push forward, to push everyone when it looked as if the differences between the House and Senate were impossible to resolve. The conference report before us is a testament to their tenacity and their bipartisanship.

This bill is a shining example of what Congress can accomplish when we put our differences aside and sit down to do the daily work of legislating. This is a very strong bill, a bipartisan bill. It is just unfortunate it has taken this long to get here.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this monumental conference report which will put Americans back to work, enhance our airport infrastructure, and will make the safest aviation system in the world even safer.

I yield the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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