Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to talk about the FAA reauthorization bill that is pending before the Senate now. And I want to begin by thanking the chair of Commerce, Senator Cantwell, and her ranking member, Senator Cruz, for doing something very important. It is critical that this FAA reauthorization bill happen. And as I look at the bill, I see many provisions that I strongly support, and I applaud the committee for their work. In particular, the committee has addressed the critical shortage in air traffic control, which is incredibly important to the safety of our skies; and, second, the committee dealt with a challenging issue surrounding pilot training hours, and, I think, came up with a solution that is going to be the right solution. So I begin with: This is a big bill with a lot of provisions, and I find much to like in almost all of it.

But I rise to address the one piece of it where I am not supportive, and that is the mandate that the Senate committee version contains to add five slots--or ten flights--to one of the most delay-prone and congested airports in the United States, Reagan National Airport, otherwise known as DCA. And I want to spend a little bit of time going into this issue, as the Senator representing Virginia. But I stand together with the support of colleagues--the Senators from Maryland, Senator Van Hollen and Senator Cardin; the Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner. We are filing an amendment to remove the additional slots at DCA in this provision, and I want to just explain why to my colleagues.

First, just a word about DCA. Most of us know it, but maybe not all know it and can put it in the context with other airports in this country.

DCA is a postage stamp of an airport. It is 860 acres. By comparison, Dulles is built on 12,000 acres. The Denver airport is nearly 30,000 acres. The Dallas airport is, I think, 18,000 acres.

The DCA airport was built at a time when air traffic was not so intense, wasn't so normal, wasn't so critical to the Nation's economy; and it was built on this small footprint. And everyone who has flown into DCA knows there is no way to expand it. You are essentially kind of wrapped around on nearly three sides by water, and then, on the fourth side, it is U.S. 1 and a rail line. There is no way to make it bigger.

DCA has three runways. There is a primary runway--the long runway-- and then there are two commuter runways on these 860 acres. When DCA was built and, more recently, as studies have been done, the estimate has been that DCA should, on that footprint with those 3 runways, accommodate 15 million passengers a year in and out of that airport.

Where is DCA today? Today, DCA is pressed to the gills and 25\1/2\ million passengers a year are coming into or out of DCA.

And it is pressed in another way. The airport was built so that the 15 million passengers would be spread across the 3 runways: larger planes from farther away on the main runway and then commuter planes from near distances on the 2 commuter runways. But there have been significant advances in the configuration of airlines, and commuter airplanes that used to be turboprops are now jets. And so what has happened at DCA is that 90 percent of the flights that come into DCA have to use the primary runway, and that number is increasing as the commuter planes change in their configurations.

So to just kind of summarize that, a very small airport that was designed for 15\1/2\ million passengers spread across 3 runways is now dealing with a passenger load of 25\1/2\ million passengers, with 90 percent of those having to land on the main runway.

How does that make DCA rank with other airports in the United States? Well, again, because of its small size, there are a number of airports that have more passengers in and out. DCA is the 19th busiest airport in the United States, if you look at the entire airport. But if you look at the main runway at DCA, that main runway is the single busiest runway in the whole United States. LaGuardia doesn't beat it. Kennedy doesn't beat it. Newark doesn't beat it. LAX doesn't beat it. Atlanta Hartsfield doesn't beat it. This runway that we use in this region is the busiest runway in the United States.

What does that mean? What does it mean to have these 25\1/2\ million passengers mostly on 1 runway at DCA? Well, the first thing it means is very significant delay. Remember, I mentioned that DCA is the 19th busiest airport in the United States. But if you look at the average delay per day, it is No. 8. In other words, it punches really far above its weight when it comes to delay.

And what kind of delay? You know, a delay of 2 or 3 minutes, I mean, hey, that wouldn't be a problem. But the average delay at DCA--and more than 20 percent of flights in and out of DCA experience delay--the average delay of those that do is not 10 minutes. It is not 30 minutes. It is not 45 minutes. It is 67 minutes. That is the average delay on these more than 20 percent of the flights that come into and out of DCA.

How about beyond delay? What other measures? Well, again, I told you that DCA was the 19th busiest airport in the United States. But it is No. 3 in canceled flights.

Now, some jurisdictions have canceled flights because the weather is horrible. You know, you might expect a lot of cancellations in an Alaska or maybe in a Minneapolis or maybe in a Chicago, the Windy City. With so many flights coming in, you might expect that they would have a lot of cancellations.

The problem at DCA isn't weather. The problem is congestion, and it is No. 3 in the country in terms of cancellations.

There is another measure that is a combination of both, a kind of a delay and safety measure: the number of times--and I think we have all experienced this--if you are flying into DCA, that you are put into a routing circle or loop before you can land. Now, that is part of what contributes to the 67 minutes of delay that is experienced by these more than 21 percent of the planes that have delay, but it also poses some additional challenges.

When you are looping a plane over a very restricted DC airspace as other planes are taking off--one per minute from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., taking off or landing; one per minute--you raise the risk of accident, and you also subject neighborhoods with loop patterns to noise. And that was one of the original controversies that led Congress to decide to take these airports out of the Federal control and put them into the control of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority--the idea that we can manage this better for safety, for convenience, but also to reduce noise in the neighborhoods in the DMV.

So delay, cancellation, and looping patterns that are both a delay factor and a convenience factor and a neighborhood amenity factor, and that is DCA today.

There is another challenge with DCA, and that is, with congestion, you run into risks of safety. As we were considering this matter just in the last few weeks, before the FAA bill was pending before Congress--but work had been done in the committees and work had been done in the House--there was a near miss on the runways at DCA. A plane was getting ready to take off on the main runway, a flight to Boston--a JetBlue flight to Boston--and another plane was trying to cross over to one of those shorter commuter runways, and they came within 300 feet of a collision.

If you listen to the audiotape--and I can't play the tape in the Chambers; I wish I could, but I played it for colleagues outside the Chamber--you hear this conversation of the air traffic controllers. And, I will tell you, they are the most even-keeled, monotone people on the planet Earth. It is ``just the facts, ma'am,'' and you never hear emotions in their voice. But in this particular instance, you hear the tension ratcheting up, as these two planes are getting closer and closer, until you hear, in a frantic and worried way, one of the air traffic controllers just yelling, ``Stop! Stop!'' to these two planes because they are about to collide with one another. Three hundred feet isn't very much. It is not very much, and yet you raise the risk of accident with congestion.

I mean, it stands to reason. Auto accidents don't happen as often on roads that aren't congested. But when roads are congested, you run the risk of greater accidents. And that is what is happening at DCA right now, before we talk about adding slots.

Now, I do appreciate the fact that, in this bill, as I said, one of the things I like is the focus on air traffic controllers, because that is a key part of this. But it just stands to reason that, if it is already the busiest runway in the United States, and it is already one of the most delayed airports in the United States, and it is already near the lead in cancellations and needs for flights to loop around, it is a problem waiting to happen. And I have described this accident in the last few weeks as a flashing red warning signal to Congress: Please, do not add more flights. Don't jam more flights into this busiest runway in the United States.

The proposal before the body is to add 10 more flights, what we call 5 slots. It doesn't sound like a lot. I will admit that ``five slots'' doesn't sound like a lot. And maybe in an airport where there wasn't already a severe congestion problem, it wouldn't be a lot. And maybe in an airport that wasn't so small and whose size is already creating safety challenges, it wouldn't be a lot. But at DCA, it is a lot.

And so we have asked the FAA, charged with air traffic safety and experts in this--and I am definitely not an expert: What would 10 more flights mean?

And, again, in the five slots, each slot is a flight in and a flight out. So 5 slots are 10 flights.

What would 10 flights a day mean to DCA?

And what the FAA said was, OK, even one flight would increase delay in operations at DCA. Even one would increase delay in this top-10 most delayed airport in the United States. But 10 flights would add an extra 751 minutes, more than 12 hours, of delay at DCA every day--751 minutes of delay at DCA every day--and it would likely affect 183 flights.

Now, this airport, as I have said, is already one of the most delayed in the United States, and if you add that 751 minutes to the average daily delay at DCA, you are now over 12,000 minutes of delay every day at DCA. So DCA would be climbing a ladder. They wouldn't be the eighth most delayed airport. They would be climbing the ladder and really cement their place in the top 10 or bottom 10, depending on how you would want to look at it.

You all know that delay is bad. You don't want to arrive at a location late. Already, 67 minutes is the average that it would increase. It doesn't increase by average. Some would increase by a lot, some by a little. But remember that delay also has a compounding effect. If you are late leaving, delayed by 67 minutes and then some, then you might miss a connection or two. Or you might cause planes to wait for you, which then delays a whole lot of other people. So in our air traffic system, delay builds on delay, and it is kind of a geometric progression that creates massive inconvenience.

The argument that we are making, those of us who are in this region-- we are not on the Commerce Committee. We weren't involved in the negotiation. We made our intentions known. We made them known for a very long time. And the intentions we have made known are that this is already an overburdened airport with the busiest runway in the United States, and there are both passenger convenience and safety reasons to not do this.

But it is not just us. It is not just us. The FAA has not said: Do this or don't do it. But the FAA has said: If you add even one plane, you are going to increase delay at this very delay-prone airport.

But there is also another body that is offering us advice. Congress created an authority called the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority during the Reagan administration.

I have a personal connection to this story. My father-in-law had been the Governor of Virginia and was somewhat of an expert in transportation, and President Reagan's Secretary of Transportation, Liddy Dole, asked him to come and lobby Congress to let go of control of these airports and instead create an authority. My father-in-law, Linwood, died about 2 years ago, at age 98, but it was one of his proud moments. And it was hard to convince Congress to give up control of these airports. It was very hard. It was a tough battle, but he eventually did it. And Congress agreed that DCA and Dulles would be operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

And Congress appoints that board. Certain members have to be from DC, certain from Virginia, certain from Maryland, and certain are Federal appointees who can be from anywhere. But we appoint that board, and we exercise oversight over that board, and they have responsibility for the safety of these two airports.

What are they saying about this proposal? Well, those who are charged with operating these airports every day are saying: Don't do this.

They are essentially saying the same thing that this air traffic controller is saying: Stop! Stop!

The way to manage this extra congestion and delay and safety danger at DCA is not putting more flights in here; it is taking advantage of more capacity at Dulles and more capacity at BWI.

So my colleagues and I are offering this amendment, recognizing the good work that the committee has done to promote safety throughout this reauthorization bill but pointing out that in this one instance, the proposal in the bill is directly contrary to the safety of 25 million people who use this airport, is directly contrary to the safety of neighborhoods surrounding this airport, and will take an already overburdened, delay- and cancellation-prone airport and make matters much worse.

We will do all we can to press for a vote on this amendment, to hopefully convince our colleagues to vote with us.

The last thing I will say before I sit down is this: The near miss 2 weeks ago is a warning light. We have all been warned. It is rare--it is rare--to have legislation where there is no downside to it. There is always going to be potential downside, and sometimes we can assess what the downside is, and sometimes the downside--we may not be able to assess what it is. There is nothing we do here that doesn't have a downside. But I have been here for about 12 years now, and I will say that this is a piece of legislation--unlike any other that I have considered--where the downside has been placed on the table right before us in such a stark way as we are coming up to consider this bill.

I just hope my colleagues will see the warning for what it is, will heed the advice of the FAA, and will listen to those we have empowered to operate this airport. If they are telling us that this should not be done and that if it is done, you can increase the risk of something bad happening, we should listen to them. We should listen to them.

The one last thing I will mention because it is often relevant in bills like this is, if we were to make this change and accept the amendment and strip away these 10 additional flights, are we going to cause problems over on the House side? You know, we had this debate about the FISA reauthorization. We have this debate on appropriations bills all the time.

We know the FAA bill reauthorization needs to be done by the end of next week. If we were to strip out the 10 flights, are we going to have problems over on the House side? The answer to that is no because the additional slots were only included in the Senate bill. The House considered the same proposal and rejected it in committee--no extra slots jammed into the busiest runway in the United States. None.

Now, some didn't like that, so on the floor of the House, they offered an amendment to add these 5 slots, 10 flights, and the amendment failed. So we know what the will of the body is on the House side already, and that was a vote that took place before this near miss. My surmise is, if they were against it before the near miss, they are going to be even more against it after the near miss. So we needn't worry that if we adjust the bill before us to take this out, there is going to be a danger on the House side of compromising the bill and causing us to miss the deadline on the reauthorization.

With that, I appreciate the attention of the body and yield the floor.

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