Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on my amendment, which strikes ``social'' from the scope of factors examined under the FAA's BEYOND program expansion.

Mr. Chair, this is a commonsense amendment that simply seeks to allow the FAA to focus on its core mission. The FAA's BEYOND program was crafted to yield the best outcomes for unmanned aircraft systems, not to promote garbage and irrelevant woke ideology.

The FAA BEYOND program is innovative, because it was designed to understand the potential benefits of drone use and the processes for drone integration. There is no room for any sort of liberal agenda in this program nor in this legislation.

My amendment removes the reference to social impacts examined under the BEYOND program expansion, which goes undefined in the bill, and could, therefore, be used to advance woke considerations. Expanding the scope of the BEYOND program to include social factors distracts from BEYOND's mission of making beyond visual line of sight operations repeatable, scaleable, and viable.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, I would agree with my colleague that this program is vital. It is vital for the future of aviation and for medicine and for all sorts of applications. What it shouldn't be used for is a woke agenda.

The BEYOND program expansion is supposed to enable testing of new emerging aviation concepts and technologies to inform policies, rulemaking, and guidance needed to enable these new concepts and technologies, again, not to be leveraged for wokeness.

The government should not stick their nose into Americans' lifestyle, well-being, and societal preferences by use or leveraging the BEYOND program, and that is exactly what my colleague is encouraging.

Mr. Chair, let us not allow the Biden administration to shift attention away from the real problems that Americans face every day to his administration's radical leftist agenda, which they try to creep into every aspect of our lives.

I urge adoption of this very commonsense amendment, which focuses on the underlying bill, the true mission of the FAA, which is aviation and safety in our skies, not wokeness.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, I do appreciate the intent of my colleague, but I think it should be noted that this serves as a back door for a woke agency if it chooses to be so. When we leave these back doors open, what we have seen is a weaponized FBI against American citizens. We have seen a weaponized IRS against American citizens. We have seen a weaponized Justice Department against American citizens.

This does nothing more than open the door for the FAA to become weaponized on the social, woke agenda. Enough is enough. Yes, it is just a word, and that word should be stricken.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment. It is commonsense, it is conservative, it is the right thing to do, and it says no more wokeness in our country when it comes to the government and how it rules.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, the FAA reauthorization bill has a section requiring the FAA to conduct research and development to mitigate the impact of turbulence.

As part of this, it requires the agency to conduct R&D to understand the impacts of climate change and other factors on the nature of turbulence.

My amendment changes this requirement to focus on the impacts of weather rather than climate change. Weather patterns are a common cause of turbulence. Jet streams, storms, and the movement of warm fronts and cold fronts can all cause it.

Mr. Chair, this is, again, a commonsense amendment.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, as indicated by my colleague, the definition of climate change is a long-term event. A flight and turbulence would be a short-term occurrence.

What we are talking about is weather in a moment on a duration of a flight and how it impacts said flight. It is changing weather, not climate change, that is to blame on your flight to and from D.C.

We don't measure climate change over a duration of a flight, but this is what we are talking about--the duration of a flight--and turbulence that impacts flights while they are in the air.

As we develop a better understanding of how the weather impacts turbulence, people may better understand how instances of turbulence might differ under different times.

Mr. Chairman, what I am trying to say is let us not allow agendas to slip into the mission.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of my amendment. This is common sense, and I thank my colleague for his comments.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for his comments. I emphasize that if we allow or encourage the FAA to study climate change, if it were, it is going to lead to a boondoggle. The FAA is busy enough. They have enough on their hands. It makes sense to study weather patterns and turbulence. It does not make sense to allow woke ideologies to slip into the mission statement of an agency whose primary charter is to keep those in the air safe.

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

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