Niki Tsongas: “The work they do at Natick is critical for our future. These are the kinds of technologies that we need.”

I think it is important to remember that we are having this hearing today because it has been 47 days since the landfall of Hurricane Maria, and yet our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico are still enduring a humanitarian crisis.

Many still do not have safe drinking water.

I am gravely concerned not only about our efforts to correct this ongoing problem, but also about the impact it may be having on the recruitment, retention, and confidence level of the pilots we ask to fly this aircraft.

Given the information that we have learned from the gas explosions that devastated the Merrimack Valley in September, it is now clear that this disaster was entirely preventable.