Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today in support of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. This has been a truly bipartisan, bicameral endeavor, and that is how it should be. It has taken longer than we had hoped, but the final product is worth it. This bill will empower the FAA to aggressively address the aviation system safety crisis, make our aviation system more accessible for passengers with disabilities, provide historic investments that will enhance our Nation's capacity to recruit and train the next generation of aviation workers, and do so without lowering, weakening, or watering down the post-Colgan safety system, including pilot qualification standards. There are many important provisions in this bill, but I want to highlight just a few today. First and foremost, this bill takes important steps to address critical safety challenges facing our aviation system. During the pandemic, retirements and buyouts drained critical experience from our aviation workforce, both in the Federal Agencies, like the FAA and the NTSB, as well as in the commercial aviation sector. The post-COVID surge in demand for air travel put a huge strain on our system and stretched the remaining aviation workforce thin. Near misses and close calls became so frequent that the FAA was forced to convene a safety summit. Despite this, the close calls keep happening over and over and over again.…”