the cost of jet fuel is now the airline industry's largest operating cost with the average cost of a gallon of jet fuel up by 260 percent since 2000.

We had an opportunity yesterday--it was the 100th anniversary of Norman Borlaug's birth--to hold a symposium in his honor yesterday afternoon.

Well, see, Madam Secretary, last year when you were here, I asked you if there was a place that consumers or Americans could go to follow, somewhere within the government, the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

I would appreciate that today.

As a matter of fact, there is $100 per aircraft departure tax, which would cost our Nation's airlines roughly $1 billion annually.

But the cuts you decided to make were uniform across the board.

But wouldn't NextGen make the airline or make the whole issue more efficient, eliminate the need for towers if everything progressed the way you see it?

Passengers already pay more than their fair share of taxes, roughly 20 percent on every fare that is out there.

So it would be fair to them to keep forward with this investment in their industry? Are we going to be able to keep ours--end of the bargain?

Considering it is probably the safest form of travel in the Nation, we would certainly want to make it competitive, wouldn't we?

I was wondering as far as in a letter sent to Secretary LaHood on March 7th by the transportation infrastructure chairman Bill Shuster and Senator Thune, it was noted the yearly travel budget for FAA employees is approximately $179 million? Could this be an area of potential waste?