Niki Tsongas: “The choices that lie ahead of us are not easy. They require a more honest assessment of the challenges that face our…”

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.

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.

This amendment really is a very modest investment in our Nation's workforce and, therefore, worthy of increased funding devoted to this purpose. We can't just be investing in energy technologies; we need to be investing in our people who…

I think we're grateful for the NTSB, who's bringing some clarity, some objective clarity to just why this happened and what steps should be taken to prevent it from happening again.