Bruce Westerman: “what about the $12 billion we put in the reconciliation bill to upgrade our air traffic control system? We are not…”

“what about the $12 billion we put in the reconciliation bill to upgrade our air traffic control system? We are not talking about just permitting energy. We are talking about permitting safety. Look at how long it takes to build interstate highways and bridges, and the safety effects that happen because those projects are dragged out for so long. It costs so much more money, and it creates congestion. It creates all kinds of problems. If we could just move the permitting process more quickly, we could benefit not only from the cost of energy, the cost of transmission, and the cost of raw materials that we can be mining, but we could also improve the safety of our country. The Department of Transportation tells me the problem is they can't get a NEPA permit to put fiber-optic cables in air traffic control towers. That is insane when something like an outdated air traffic control system that has funding can't be implemented because we can't get through the NEPA process to run a fiber-optic cable.”