Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Ms. WEXTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from South Carolina.

June is LGBT Pride Month, a time when people across the country are taking a positive stance against discrimination and violence against LGBT individuals, but this amendment seeks to allow discrimination against the LGBT community in HUD-funded housing and shelters.

Make no mistake, this amendment will weaken protections for LGBT people, especially children, who are experiencing homelessness and fleeing natural disasters, as well as survivors of violence.

These protections are important because nearly one-third of transgender and gender nonbinary people experience homelessness at some point in their life; about one-half of transgender people do.

According to a Center for American Progress study done in 2015, only 30 percent of shelter providers across four States, including my own of Virginia, were willing to properly accommodate transgender women. According to another recent survey, over half of transgender survey respondents who stayed in a shelter in the past year were verbally harassed, physically attacked, and/or sexually assaulted because of their gender identity.

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Ms. WEXTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Some say that this amendment will negatively impact the safety and privacy of women in shelters. Service providers around the country who operate shelters every day disagree. These providers believe that nondiscrimination protections are necessary to ensure everyone in need can access shelters.

Over 300 domestic and sexual violence organizations across the country signed a national consensus statement in support of full and equal access for the transgender community. These leaders agree that serving transgender women victims in shelters is appropriate and does not pose a safety issue.

While housing transgender people according to their gender identity does not propose a safety risk to others, failing to do so puts transgender people in danger. Transgender people experience shockingly high rates of sexual and physical violence and forcing transgender people to use facilities that don't match their gender identity leaves them at risk for harassment, assault, and a host of harms that result when people avoid using the bathroom during the day.

Allowing shelter providers to decide who is eligible for access to single-sex or sex-segregated shelters opens the door to discrimination. Make no mistake, this is incredibly dangerous. The consequences of being turned away from a shelter can be dire.

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Ms. WEXTON. Mr. Chairman, my amendment provides $7 million for the FAA to continue its work developing the remote tower pilot program.

Remote towers are a simple but revolutionary concept: Provide air traffic control services from any location. With remote tower technology, high-definition cameras and other sensors are installed in an airport and feed video and data in real time to a remote tower center.

Remote towers offer a promising new way for the FAA and airports to address air traffic without breaking the bank, saving on construction and maintenance costs that come with building a traditional air traffic control tower.

In addition to these cost savings, remote towers provide additional capabilities beyond the out-of-the-window view, such as integration of local weather information, tracking moving objects, and the overlay of radar and surveillance information about an aircraft.

Remote tower systems can outline the edges of runways, taxiways, and airport structure, enhance visibility in fog, rain, and other adverse weather, and incorporate infrared cameras to provide night vision. The cameras can be filtered to minimize glare on a bright day or to add light when it is difficult to see at sunrise or dusk or on overcast days.

I am pleased that the first remote tower in the system is undergoing testing in my district at Leesburg Executive Airport. The project was launched in 2014 to address the justified need for an air traffic control tower. The airport has more than 100,000 operations annually and is located in a complex airspace just miles away from Dulles International Airport.

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Ms. WEXTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank my colleague for yielding, and I am happy to express support for her amendment and for highlighting this issue.

Remote towers can be a cost-effective way to provide additional safety and operational benefits to the National Air Space program. The underlying bill, in fact, includes report language encouraging the FAA ``to use remote tower technology as a means to enhance safety, reduce costs, and expand air traffic control services at rural and small community airports.''

I appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership on this issue. I urge adoption of her well-considered amendment.

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Ms. WEXTON. Mr. Chairman, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association agrees it would be shortsighted not to continue the remote tower pilot program at this point. If funding is not appropriated, the FAA's activities related to certifying remote towers would cease, and the valuable work that has been done to understand the technology, develop operations, train controllers, and conduct safety analysis will be put on hold. In addition, the FAA won't have the resources to install remote tower technology at other airports and evaluate future system improvements and innovations.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to continue advancement of remote tower technology as a cost-effective alternative for providing air traffic control services.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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