"FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024: An Update on Implementation One Year Later"
2025-05-15
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Source: Congress.gov
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The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will come to order. I'd ask unanimous consent that the Chairman be authorized to declare a recess at any time during today's hearing without objection. That is so ordered. As a reminder, if members inserted a document into the record, please also email it to DocumentsTi at mail.house.gov. I now recognize myself for the purposes of an opening statement. Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. being signed into law. And in crafting the law, the committee received and processed more than 2,100 stakeholder and member requests. We held five detailed policy hearings in the lead up to introduction and produced a bipartisan product that garnered the support of more than 1,000 aviation organizations and companies. When all was said and done, the final bill passed with the support of 387 members of the Congress and 88 senators. Not many pieces of legislation enjoy that kind of bipartisan support. And that bill, now law, touched just about everything in the aviation industry, including a strong and robust aviation safety title that included reforms to address close calls and near misses, a workforce title that addressed challenges head on by removing barriers for veterans and young individuals looking to begin a career in civil aviation, including bolstering the air traffic control workforce. an airport infrastructure title that increased the airport improvement program for the first time in over a decade and streamlined the environmental permitting process. A new entrant title crafted to maintain American leadership in this emerging sector and a passenger experience title that was aimed at improving travel for all Americans. Furthermore, it's a personal point of pride for me that the law included the very first ever GA title. General aviation is the foundation of our nation's aviation system. In fact, it's where many of our pilots and our mechanics and other hardworking aviation professionals, it's where they begin their career.
Put simply, the law recognized the importance of general aviation and protected the freedom to fly for every single American. While the committee has been conducting oversight to ensure that the congressional intent is upheld, today's hearing represents the first time that members will be able to hear from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Government Accountability Office on their progress, and I'm pleased the FAA has worked expeditiously to implement several key provisions in the GA title. Additionally, with heightened attention being placed on the need to modernize our air traffic control system, an initiative that all in this room support, the reauthorization bill gave the FAA a flight plan now that they have to start the plane and actually follow it. To aid that effort, Republicans on this committee came together and approved a reconciliation package that appropriates $12.5 billion to the FAA for ATC modernization. This $12.5 billion investment is going to provide a significant down payment on the administration's plan to overhaul and modernize the ATC system, and I look forward to working with them on this effort. I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for for being here today, and I look forward to hearing from each of you on the progress that the FAA and the GAO has made in implementing this milestone legislation. With that, I recognize Ranking Member Larson for his opening statement.
Thank you, Chair Graves, for calling today's oversight hearing on the implementation of the landmark 2024 FAA reauthorization law. One year ago today, Congress took decisive action to improve aviation safety, foster aerospace innovation, grow the aviation workforce, and better protect the flying public. While the FAA is making progress in implementing the law, recent tragic aviation accidents and close calls make clear the administration must prioritize the critical safety reforms included in the reauthorization. The immense loss that occurred from the tragic midair collision at Washington National Airport at DCA highlights the need for the FAA and Congress to recommit to enhancing the safety of the national airspace system and restoring the flying public's confidence in that system. Unfortunately, recent events have shown problems we are seeing in the aviation industry extend much further than issues led to the heartbreaking plane crash on January 29th. Shortly after this crash, there were several other fatal commercial crashes or safety accidents in Alaska, Philadelphia, Arizona, and other places around the country. In the last six weeks alone, there have been an ongoing series of high-profile, troubling accidents, including a helicopter conducting commercial air tours crashing in the Hudson River, two loss of separation events at commercial airline flight, wingtips of a Bombardier CRJ900 striking an Embraer E175 on the taxiway at DCA, the FAA's NOTAM system, which provides essential real-time updates on conditions affecting flight safety experiencing sudden outages, and at least three separate instances of ATC equipment failures affecting Newark Airport alone, resulting in hundreds of delays and cancellations. The American people are justifiably outraged and demand the FAA do more to make our system safer and more reliable, and we want to help. It's also been true the U.S. strives to be the gold standard in aviation safety, but that statement can ring hollow to some when there are almost daily reports of serious close calls or system failures.
One of the most immediate and effective long-term solutions the FAA can do right now is to make our system safer, is to swiftly implement the 2024 law. That law, passed by this Congress in a bipartisan manner, as the chair has noted, provides the FAA with a five-year roadmap on how the administration can address many of the safety issues we've recently seen. We gave you the what needs to be done list, and now we're in the how-to stage, and that's up to the FAA to implement. For instance, earlier this week, it was reported that flight delays at a Newark airport were in part due to only three controllers being on duty at the time, even though the staffing target was 14. Although the FAA is working to hire the maximum number of controllers from the agency's ATC training academy, as required by the law, the agency has yet to modernize staffing models for controllers and other aviation safety roles to meet the evolving needs of the NASS. There have also been several recent misses and runway incursions at airports across the country, including DCA, Seattle, Chicago, and Boston. The reauthorization law requires the FAA to establish the Runway Safety Council, which would develop new strategies to address airport surface safety risks, identify and deploy airport surface surveillance technologies to all large and medium hub airports, and conduct a review of existing systems to assess how legacy technologies can be improved. And the law could help prevent future ATC disruptions, such as the recent NOTAM outage and numerous ATC system failures that recently impacted Newark Airport, through its requirement that the FAA audit its legacy ATC systems and make immediate improvements to any system deemed outdated or unsafe. There are policies the FAA should be considering that were not included in the law as well. For instance, just last week, the Secretary announced a proposal that will help fund the modernization of new ATC facilities, systems, and equipment. We have yet to receive a proposed budget for this proposal, and such an important and costly plan will require vigorous oversight, but I do encourage committee members to take a look at what the Secretary is proposing because I do believe it is a very positive step forward.
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