On the recordSeptember 12, 2012
As we are approaching the final days of the 112th Congress, I want to join with so many other House Members in paying tribute to my friend and colleague, Representative Jerry Costello. While Jerry and I have served together on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for over 20 years, I really have come to know and admire him during the last six years as we have served together in leadership positions on the Aviation Subcommittee. Jerry was Chairman for four years while I served as the ranking minority member, and this Congress that was reversed with the Republican majority. But no matter which of us was Chairman, we forged a working relationship based on respect and a desire to work together on a bipartisan basis to get things done. And we have had a productive six years together. We passed the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act of 2009, one of the strongest safety bills to pass Congress in a long time. We spent a number of years working on a comprehensive FAA reauthorization bill, which culminated in the signing of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 on February 14, 2012. We have been committed to providing oversight and support for the effort to modernize our air traffic control system, known as NextGen. As we were first starting out together with Jerry as Chairman back in 2007, we discovered the FAA could not even succinctly tell us just what NextGen actually was.…
