[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 51 (Tuesday, May 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AIRLINE SAFETY
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, a very important matter has come up that I
hope the Senate and the House of Representatives will address itself
to. Under the leadership of our great Secretary of Transportation,
Secretary Pena, we should be alerted to the fact that we have a ticking
time bomb going on with regard to airline safety.
The Secretary of Transportation has taken the recommendation of a
previously structured national commission to ensure competitiveness in
the airline industry that this Senator was a part of, to change and
challenge the competition, increase safety, and modernize our traffic
control system in the United States.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my
remarks there be printed in the Record for the information of all, a
report to the President and Congress of August 1993 entitled ``Change,
Challenge, and Competition,'' by the National Commission to Ensure a
Strong and Competitive Airline Industry; and two articles of the last 2
days, yesterday and this morning, Tuesday, from the Washington Post, by
two excellent writers, with regard to the Federal administration's
case, supported by the Secretary of Transportation with regard to the
need to do something and to plan to do something now before the present
situation becomes chaotic.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I salute the great safety record of the
Federal Aviation Administration. Certainly, if you look at the record,
you will see that with the diligence, the tenacity, and the
determination of the dedicated air traffic controllers of the United
States of America, we fly an unbelievable amount of aircraft and flying
hours to the benefit of the traveling public. Their record has been
exemplary.
The fact of the matter is that something needs to be done with regard
to planning for the future. If you will take the time to look firsthand
today at the equipment that is available to the air traffic controller,
which all of us as the traveling public and all of the employees of the
airlines rely on to keep track of and keep the proper distance between
the mass of air traffic today, particularly at certain of our more
heavily controlled airports, you will begin to realize the enormity of
the situation.
In addition, Mr. President, this has a national security implication
because, in addition to the private aircraft and the commercial
aircraft, all of the aircraft flown by the military of the United
States of America in at least our airways and our skies in the United
States of America are, once again, controlled and kept separated by the
Air Traffic Controllers Association and their dedicated people.
If you take the time to look at the equipment that they use, you will
find, Mr. President, that in all too many cases the computers, the
viewing screens, the communications facilities that make and bring all
this together are older than any of the aircraft and in many instances
older than any of the air traffic controllers that are now using them.
In the days of yesteryear we relied basically on the vacuum tube from
the standpoint of being the heart and soul of radio, including, in the
early days, television. The vacuum tube is a thing of the past. The
vacuum tubes that we are using in our air traffic control system today
are not, by and large, manufactured in the United States but abroad,
because the computer chips and other technologies have made the vacuum
tube obsolete. When you realize that certain parts of our air traffic
control system are relying on a vacuum tube, you realize how far behind
we are.
Mr. President, the Secretary of Transportation has suggested that a
new type of corporation, which would be owned and controlled by the
Federal Government not unlike the Tennessee Valley Authority, should be
enacted as recommended by the Airline Commission in order to
streamline, to speed up, to enhance, if you will, the Federal Aviation
Administration, and to move the Federal Aviation Administration from
its present status to the new corporation. This would contribute a
great deal to the advance that has been made to speed up and modernize
our air traffic control system.
Why is this necessary? I simply submit for the Record that there are
currently 19,000 scheduled airline flights a day in the United States.
Air traffic control systems are being stretched to their absolute limit
and, as I referenced earlier, have done an excellent job. In 1980,
there were 300 million passengers flying. Last year, there were more
than 500 million passengers flying. By the year 2005, there will be 800
million passengers flying in the United States. The number of flights
per year is expected to increase from 60 million in 1993 to 74 million
by the year 2005.
I simply say that, of the budget of the United States, 80 percent of
the current Federal Aviation Administration budget goes to the air
traffic control situation. Restructuring the Federal Aviation
Administration could save, according to the recommendations and belief
of the Secretary, about $7 billion over 10 years. Rapid response to new
technology and a relief from present procurement rules are an absolute
necessity if we are to be able to keep pace with the obligation that we
have to better serve the public.
I simply say, Mr. President, that there may be some changes that
should be made. Possibly those of us responsible for this in the
Government could come up with something better, but I simply salute the
Secretary of Transportation for his forthrightness, for his looking
into the future, for his citing the safety problems that are likely to
accrue, not now, not today, but tomorrow, unless we take some action.
Therefore, I recommend the reading of these articles that I have
submitted for the Record to the Members of the House and the Senate.
While there seems to be some opposition in some parts of the Congress
today to any change whatsoever, this Senator is taking a totally open
mind on this proposition, and I hope that my other colleagues will not
only take an open mind but work collectively together to try to address
this problem that is with us today and is going to be more serious
unless we attack it now and begin to change what I think is a very
dangerous precedent that we have been setting by having the air traffic
control system not keep pace with the traveling public and its needs.
Exhibit 1
[A report to the President and Congress, August 1993]
Change, Challenge and Competition--The National Commission to Ensure a
Strong Competitive Airline Industry
restructuring faa
To ensure the timely and efficient implementation of state-
of-the-art technology for the operation and funding of the
air traffic control system, the FAA must be established as an
independent government corporation and removed from the
federal budget process. That process provides neither a
stable, predictable source of revenue nor the ability to
leverage that revenue, both of which are required to fund the
high-technology capital improvement program needed for a
state-of-the-art air traffic control system. Put simply, the
federal budget process cannot be relied on to provide
adequate, continuing funds for FAA's operations or capital
programs. The improvements we believe are necessary in our
air traffic control system cannot be accomplished without a
stable, predictable source of revenues and the ability to use
those revenues to secure long-term financing.
The Airport and Airway Trust Fund was designed to provide a
dedicated source of user funding to pay for airport and
airspace improvements. It should not serve as a general fund
asset for the federal government. User demand and the
stability and growth of user revenues must drive air traffic
control operations and modernization. A recent Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) memorandum contemplates hundreds
of millions of dollars in operating and maintenance budget
reductions for FAA in fiscal year 1995. These cuts would have
a devastating impact and illustrate how the vagaries of the
federal budget undermine the funding stability necessary to
provide efficient air traffic control services.
Few high-technology, capital-intensive businesses attempt a
pay-as-you-go approach to major capital investment projects.
The existing user-fee revenue stream must be used rationally
to fund the massive capital projects needed to keep our air
transportation system the most efficient and technologically
advanced in the world.
Unfortunately, federal agencies like the FAA operate under
severe limitations. These include total dependence on a
political and unpredictable budgetary process; a cumbersome
procurement system designed to prevent fraud but even better
at thwarting the timely and efficient acquisition of
sophisticated and rapidly evolving high technology goods and
services, and, a federal personnel system that makes it
unnecessarily difficult to attract and retain a talented and
technically sophisticated work force.
The FAA must be restructured fundamentally if we are to
take full advantage of new developments in air traffic
control technology. If it is, the U.S. can ensure that its
air traffic control system remains efficient and the world's
best, and provides an important export opportunity in a high-
technology, high-wage sector.
Adoption of the following recommendations would create a
self-funding and leading-edge system capable of meeting the
needs of travelers, shippers and airlines in a high-
technology environment. The Commission also emphasizes that
it believes the federal government should maintain policy
control of the air traffic control system and its oversight
of system safety.
Specifically, we recommend: Creation of an independent
federal corporate entity within the DOT to manage and fund
air traffic control and related functions, including system
development, procurement and maintenance. Policy control of
the air traffic control system and safety oversight should
stay with the federal government;
Establishment of a panel of FAA and industry experts, with
the participation of the Department of Defense, which will
report in 90 days on the specific structure and method of
implementation, and which will draft legislative proposals
for creation of the corporate entity; and,
The following principles should be embodied in the federal
corporate entity's implementing act:
Ability of the corporate entity to create and use a
predictable, stable source of revenue for operations,
maintenance and capital investment;
Ability of the corporate entity to issue long-term bonds
for capital purchases;
Removal of current expenditures and revenues from the
federal budget in equal amounts for a fiscally neutral
effect;
Sufficient management flexibility and compensation to
attract and retain high-caliber leadership and staff;
Flexibility to create systems for procurement, staff and
budget consistent with best practices in the private sector:
Flexibility in an orderly transfer of operating functions
to the reorganized entity; and,
Continued air traffic control service to the Defense
Department, meeting national security requirements.
other system capacity issues
The Commission gave high priority to examining ways to make
our air transportation system more efficient and
technologically advanced. Our recommendations to restructure
the FAA and accelerate the use of GPS for air traffic control
are critical to achievement of the goal.
The Commission also examined other options for improving
system capacity issues and developed these recommendations.
We recommend
FAA review the rule that limits operations at ``high
density'' airports with the aim of either removing these
artificial limits or raising them to the highest practicable
level consistent with safety requirements. (Washington
National Airport's legislated limits would not be affected.)
Congress fully fund system capacity elements--facilities
and equipment; airports; research, engineering and
development, and FAA operations--as long as these remain
within the federal budget process.
Finally, the Commission urges the FAA and the Department of
Defense to cooperate actively to make maximum possible joint
use of airspace and military airfields. In addition, we
believe costs related to system capacity improvements could
be lowered significantly if airport bonds were classified as
public-purpose bonds, as recommended by the Anthony
Commission.
____
[From the Washington Post, May 2, 1994]
United States To Shake Up Air Traffic Bureaucracy
(By Richard M. Weintraub and John Burgess)
The Clinton administration has decided that the vast
network of computers and people who guide 19,000 scheduled
airline flights a day across the country is so
bureaucratically encrusted that both safety and efficiency
will be threatened unless a new way is found to run it.
An administration proposal to remove the air traffic
service from the Federal Aviation Administration and turn it
over to a government corporation, long sought by the airline
industry, will be officially announced this week, according
to government sources.
Thousands of aircraft fly at hundreds of miles an hour
through crowded skies without bumping into each other in
large measure because of 38,000 air traffic controllers,
technicians and managers who operate the system's radars and
computers.
But, despite huge expenditures and a major improvement
program dating from 1981, some of those computers run in part
on technologically extinct vacuum tubes that until recently
could be acquired only from factories in Poland and
Czechoslovakia. Others come from China.
At sprawling Los Angeles International Airport, the radars
that monitor planes on the ground on often fog-enshrouded
runways depend on tubes made only in a British factory. The
FAA has no way to test them other than by plugging them in.
The FAA's premier project, a multibillion-dollar program to
replace its entire aircraft-tracking computer system, is so
burdened by mismanagement that officials have concluded that
it probably never can be completed as presently designed.
According to both the statistics and safety specialists,
the air traffic control system is safe today. But the
argument for reinventing it insists that, if it is to stay
safe and efficient as air travel grows, it must escape the
snail-like decision-making and procurement that many feel
have characterized FAA management.
``The plan to establish an air traffic control corporation
is a model of our reinventing government effort,'' said Vice
President Gore, who brushed aside the most recent internal
opponents to the concept at a White House meeting last month.
``The plan will cut red tape and make it easier to procure
the most up-to-date equipment. By improving working
conditions through the use of updated equipment, the plan
allows air traffic employees to focus on the business of
ensuring safer air travel for everyone.''
Not everyone agrees, and when Gore and Transportation
Secretary Federico Pena announce their plan to split the
agency, it will set off a battle on Capitol Hill, where key
congressmen are questioning whether the administration's
solution is the safest path to follow.
difference of opinion
The aviation community has many more players than the
airlines, and they do not all agree on what, if anything,
should be done.
``We need a system that will keep up with the industry it
serves,'' Pena told a group of air traffic controllers at a
recent meeting in Leesburg. ``We've been talking about this
for 10 years. Let's do it!''
But Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House
aviation subcommittee, said: ``This is just the wrong course
and it would take years to recover from it. . . . Shake up
the agency; don't dismember it.''
Oberstar said the sheer disruption of massive change to the
FAA that a new corporation would create threatens the
excellent safety record.
Other key congressional figures are split, although most
are withholding comment until the administration delivers its
proposal.
Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), chairman of the Commerce,
Science, and Transportation Committee, and Sen. Wendell H.
Ford (D-Ky.), chairman of the Senate aviation subcommittee,
have serious doubts about the idea, according to aides.
But the transportation appropriations committee chairman,
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Rep. Bob Carr (D-
Mich.), are leaning in favor.
Interestingly, Pena and Oberstar and most everyone in
between agree that something is broken at the FAA. It's how
to fix it that creates the differences.
Just as the Federal Communications Commission allocates
what frequencies can be used by radio and television
stations, the FAA tells airplanes where they can fly.
There's one big difference. After the FCC makes its
decisions, its functional role is over. Radio and television
stations maintain and operate their own transmission
equipment. The FAA maintains and runs a multibillion-dollar
system that interacts tens of thousands of times daily with
commercial flights, corporate jets, recreational pilots and
the military.
Air traffic controllers, aided by an elaborate web of radar
antennas and computers, direct those 19,000 commercial
flights every day, but the closest a passenger gets to this
network is an announcement from the cockpit that ``we're
number one for takeoff'' or, in times of bad weather, ``air
traffic control has told us to hold here.''
Such delays translate directly into dollars. American
Airlines Executive Vice President Robert W. Baker said that a
15-minute delay for the airline's smallest plane, the Fokker-
100, costs $1,800, while the same delay for its biggest, the
McDonnell-Douglas MD-11, costs $8,024. These are the kinds of
numbers that have led a financially beleaguered industry to
argue for change.
Pena said that tinkering around the edges will not fix the
FAA. To bring about the transformation, the administration
would send the air traffic control functions to a government-
owned corporation, something like the Tennessee Valley
Authority.
Of the agency's 52,000 employees, 38,000 would go into ATC
Corp. These are the controllers who work in the towers and
regional radar centers, and the computer specialists, the
electricians, mechanics and others who maintain the system.
What's left of the FAA would continue to be responsible for
regulating aviation safety by setting standards for aircraft
and aircraft parts and writing the rules for everything from
pilot and flight attendant training to airport security to
grants for airport improvement.
A suggestion to take the entire FAA into the corporation
was rejected by the White House, as was a proposal to create
a fully privatized corporation instead of a government-
controlled one.
While the administration's corporation would be a
``business'' in the technical sense, the government would be
the only shareholder. The secretaries of transportation and
defense would sit on its board, along with representatives of
unions, the general public, the business community, the
airline industry, recreational pilots and other users of the
system.
The board would hire a chief executive and set policy
guidelines, as any corporate board would, although the FAA
would continue to monitor ATC Corp. for safety compliance,
just as it monitors aircraft manufacturers. The safety
guidelines by which controllers operate still would be
written by the FAA.
Initial funding would come from the 10 percent ticket tax
all airline passengers pay. Since about 80 percent of the
FAA's current $9.1 billion budget goes to air traffic
control, 80 percent of the ticket tax would go to ATC Corp.,
except that it would be called a fee rather than a tax.
Administration officials estimate savings for taxpayers over
a 10-year period would be several billion dollars.
easier access to funds
An important difference--and one that would theoretically
make it possible for ATC Corp. to move more quickly on a
major procurement than the FAA can today--is that the
corporation could borrow money or float bonds rather than
await the annual congressional appropriation from the
aviation trust fund, which is regularly held hostage to
deficit control.
The remaining ticket tax funds would flow into the trust
fund to support airport projects, which would remain under
the control of the FAA. The FAA's safety functions would be
covered by general fund appropriations as they are now.
Congressional critics question the administration's funding
assumptions. Other critics of the proposal ask whether a
corporation is necessary at all.
``Air traffic control is a natural monopoly, and the only
way to protect the public interest is to maintain it as a
government function with broad, informed oversight,'' the
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) told the task
force that drew up the proposal. The AOPA, long powerful on
Capital Hill in part because many members of Congress also
are private pilots, represents 324,000 general aviation
pilots.
The association expressed fears of an increase in taxes and
fees accompanying a deterioration in safety and efficiency,
especially during a transition period.
John Olcott, head of the National Business Aircraft
Association (NBAA), which represents companies that use
aircraft for business purposes, argued that the ``checks and
balances provided by Congressional oversight should be
maintained so that political agendas of the executive branch
. . . and the vested interests of any single user group do
not compromise system safety or service to all users.''
Oberstar, like the AOPA and the NBAA, favors change within
the existing government structure.
``There has been no effort to fix what is there while
proposing radical surgery. Will they just fire people? That
is terribly disruptive,'' Oberstar said, recalling the
turmoil tht followed the firing of 11,400 illegally striking
controllers by President Reagain in 1981.
The corporation, Oberstar argues, is being designed to
serve the interests of airlines. In hard times, they may push
to cut fees, to cut the number of controllers. That could
lead to . . . precariousness for safety.''
``Oberstar's argument . . . assumes that the industry will
`own' this corporation. It won't,'' Pena counters. ``All the
stock will be owned by the government and we think we will
actually increase safety because we can bring on technology
sooner.''
Adds FAA Administrator David Hinson: ``Even today, we
oversee safety for thousands of operations at [aircraft
manufacturers like] McDonnel-Douglas and Boeing. It wouldn't
be any different with air traffic control.''
committed to safety
Some controllers bristle at the suggestion safety would
suffer. ``Why do these people in Congress think I am going to
be any less safe under a corporation? That burns me!'' said
Mark Meuwissen, a controller at Detroit.
And the controllers want that new equipment. ``I've been
here for years and I've never seen anything done in less than
three years with regular procurement,'' said Paul Jester, who
is in charge of computer and radar maintenance at the
regional air traffic control center at Leesburg. ``Everything
is maxed out in this facility. We are at capacity.''
His lament is heard often in air traffic control
facilities, whether older ones such as in St. Louis and
Chicago or one like Detroit, where a new control tower is
filled with equipment dating from the 1960s and 1970s.
For now, even proponents are waiting on the sidelines for
the administration to fill in the blanks on the details.
When Pena told top executives of the airlines recently that
it was time to stand up and be counted, the answer was: We
are for it in principle but first show us how this
corporation will be funded.
``Whatever fixes the system, I'm in favor of,'' said Randy
Babbitt, head of the Air Line Pilots Association. ``But we
have concerns over how certain components now within the FAA
that work well together because they are part of the same
unit'' will interface. ``Today they work very closely.''
In meetings with controllers in the past, Pena was peppered
with questions about pensions, job protection and the like.
Time and again, the answer was: it's under study. At one
point a controller exploded: ``I'm hearing only vague
references. . . . Sounds to me like it hasn't been thought
through.''
The drafters of the plan said they will fill in the details
in days and weeks to come.
Pena said, ``What I ask is, hear us out. The burden of
proof is on us. . . . If we can't answer questions, we ought
not pass it.''
____
[From the Washington Post, May 3, 1994]
FAA's Case Study in Computer Chaos--Snarled Air Traffic Control Project
Points Up Risks of Big Projects
(By John Burgess and Richard M. Weintraub)
The team would call at Federal Aviation Administration
offices with lengthy requests for reports and interviews
related to a single question: How far behind and over cost
was the agency's multibillion-dollar program to modernize the
nation's air traffic control computers?
Team members often worked nights and weekends, meeting in
an 8th-floor room at the FAA's Independence Avenue
headquarters. In the end, they decided that the agency's
pledge to finish the job for $6 billion was fanciful.
``We came to the view that you just can't get there from
here,'' said Mark Gerchick, a member of the inhouse FAA group
that sorted through the project's debris.
The ``Advanced Automation System'' contract offers lessons
for big government computer jobs everywhere. It shows how
they tend to bloat, how agencies and contractors can grow too
close, how officials dither on decision-making in a quest for
the system that is perfect rather than the one that is
possible now.
It shows that however good the intentions, creating the
complex codes that drive the computer age--software--always
exacts greater time and expense than their creators predict.
Programmers at times must scale back ambitious plans and
settle for the equivalent of paving a cow path--making an
established system a little better than creating a
revolutionary new one.
The tale also offers a window into the often-mysterious
work of the many software companies that ring the Capital
Beltway and win work from the federal government. Close to
1,000 people in this area, most of them working in Rockville,
earn their livings from the air traffic control contract
alone.
Their assignment was bold from the start. They were to
create, essentially from scratch, one of the largest and most
complex computer networks in history. It would link thousands
of computers at hundreds of facilities, processing and
transmitting radar images from all over the country where
each day 165,000 aircraft take off and land.
To ensure that none of those airplanes collided, it would
have extremely high reliability: It would fail for not more
than three seconds per year.
Now the contract's future is in question. FAA Administrator
David R. Hinson has suspended work on parts of it and thrown
into question the entire plan, one of the biggest civilian
contracts in federal history. Promising to set things right
once and for all, Hinson transferred the project's manager
and opened the door to canceling other parts or giving them
to other companies.
While specialists agree that the air traffic system is
basically safe, no one denies that the computers must be
replaced to keep things that way and allow air traffic to
grow. Further, the FAA's handling, or mishandling, of the
contract is providing ammunition for the Clinton
administration's push to turn the air traffic service into a
government corporation, divorced from the FAA. The
administration is schedule to issue a formal proposal for the
split today.
Everyone in the industry has a tale of how old the
equipment is. Randy Babbitt, head of the Air Line Pilots
Association, recalls his shock at visiting a control tower
recently and finding that the radar screens were essentially
the same ones he had encountered as a new pilot at Eastern
Airlines in 1966.
The FAA was thinking of a grand modernization as long ago
as the late 1970s. But it was the 1981 strike by most of the
nation's air traffic controllers that moved the agency to
act.
As conceived, the Advanced Automation System would operate
with a small work force. It would have intelligence that
would safely place aircraft closer together in the skies to
reduce costly delays and chart out routes that would produce
big fuel savings to the airlines.
The price tag estimate in 1981: $2 billion.
By the time the contract was let in 1988 to International
Business Machines Corp., the FAA had already spent close to
$700 million in research and development and the contract had
become quite a bit bigger as new features were added. The
estimated cost was $4.3 billion, but that was just a guess
because officials had left unanswered questions about whether
to add many features.
The first big-ticket phase was the replacement of aging
consoles that controllers use in the FAA's 22 regional
centers--such as one at Leesburg--that guide planes between
airports. Plans called for controllers to get modern
``workstation'' computers and displays that would be more
reliable, color-code traffic and let them select radio
frequencies by touching screen buttons instead of dialing
dials or switching switches.
Most of the hardware being used was standard commercial
equipment. The cost was in sofware--computer instructions
that would tie the hundreds of sites together. It entailed
writing and testing more than 1.2 million lines of computer
instructions, each of which had to fit perfectly with the
rest or risk bringing the entire system to a halt.
To write those instructions, IBM had chosen a relatively
rare computer language called Ada. Early on, work was slowed
because the market lacked a good selection of Ada
``development tools''--essentially software that engineers
use to write more software. IBM had to create many of the
tools.
Moreover, the FAA continued to dither about what it really
wanted. A key question that caused endless delays: How would
the system accommodate ``flights strips,'' pieces of paper
that controllers use to keep track of information about
individual flights? The FAA at first wanted to replicate the
strips electronically on the display screen. Later, after
controllers had been shown prototypes, it opted to store the
information out of sight so that controllers could ``call it
up'' as needed.
``They never wanted to close the door, because they were
always afraid that better technology would pass them by,''
said Clark Onstad, a Washington aviation attorney and former
FAA chief counsel. His clients include Loral Corp., which
recently bought the IBM division handling the air traffic
job.
Changing FAA positions over the number of air traffic
control facilities also complicated the job. When the agency
backed way from an ambitious plan to consolidate many
facilities into regional ones, software code had to be
rewritten.
With the schedule slipping, IBM began cutting corners,
putting software into use before it had passed the company's
usual battery of tests, IBM said. In an interview last year,
Gerald Ebker, then chairman of the Bethesda-based IBM unit
handling the job, put it this way: ``The problem is key
individuals in key slots who didn't do their jobs.'' The
company replaced its team leaders and brought in more talent
from outside the area.
In the fall of 1992, things came to a head. IBM officially
informed the FAA that another 14-month delay was likely. With
the airline industry pushing for a faster, more flexible
system and Congress looking over its shoulder, the FAA
responded by sending IBM a ``cure letter,'' which demanded a
fix and functioned as the first step for a potential
revocation of the contract.
IBM and FAA people met constantly in the spring of 1993 and
reached a plan. IBM would demonstrate the basic soundness of
the software for the regional centers by September 1994. It
would be allowed to add certain key layers of software after
that, rather than before as previously planned. The software
would be tested simultaneously.
The agreement laid out a series of ``milestones'' that IBM
would pass to ensure that the job stayed on schedule for an
October 1996 opening at the Seattle regional center.
John Burt, at the time the FAA's top systems acquisition
officer, argues that this was a feasible approach: Unless
firm deadlines were created, he said, people would never get
the job done. Testing the software sequentially, as was
originally planned, would take longer and would ensure that
when the ultimate system was finally turned on, it would be
much closer to obsolescence.
By now the total estimated cost was $4.7 billion. Members
of Congress wrung their hands but took no action. Things
seemed settled--until a new secretary of transportation,
Federico Pena, and a new FAA administrator, Hinson took
office. Their people began nosing around the program and
found out late last year that the official estimate had grown
again, this time to $5.9 billion.
So Hinson created a team of FAA people who had taken no
direct role in the project. Their job: to do a ``reality
check,'' sort through the mountain of paper and charts that
had been generated and give their own best estimate.
In ensuing weeks, the team conducted roughly 100 interviews
at the FAA and at contracting companies. They pored over a
stack of paper 25 feet high.
They did not always feel welcome. ``There was some mistrust
that we couldn't really understand, that we hadn't walked a
mile'' with the contract team, said John Cassady, FAA deputy
chief counsel and staff director of the task force.
In the end, the task force concluded that IBM and FAA
officials had made unrealistic assumptions about progress. It
was ``as if wishing would make it so,'' said one member of
the inquiry team.
Particularly troubling was that under the revised schedule,
IBM would be officially credited with having demonstrated
basic feasibility in September 1994 even though key pieces of
software would not be finished. They would be developed later
as what had been finished was tested. That was asking for
trouble, the group thought.
Another warning sign: There was no letup in the project's
generation of ``problem reports''--official notice of
something that needed fixing. IBM was eliminating about 300 a
month, but generating roughly the same number. Unless
something gave, about 3,000 problem reports would still be
pending this September, when IBM would supposedly demonstrate
the system's fitness.
Another problem: Engineers were still having to go back
into line after line of software code to fix past mistakes or
incorporate new FAA design changes. Virtually all lines were
being reworked; IBM's target had been 40 percent, the task
force said. As of February of this year, the contract team
had pending requests for changes in close to 650,000 lines of
instructions.
Buried in the report was a finding that the FAA had given
IBM almost $19 million in ``award fees,'' special incentive
payments granted when a contractor has shown ``exceptional
performance in such areas as schedule, performance, program
and contract management.''
In March, the team reported these and other findings to
Hinson. Its best judgment was that under a ``moderate risk
scenario,'' the ultimate cost would come to $7 billion;
delivery would likely be 20 months later than the schedule
the FAA had negotiated with IBM. In response, Hinson replaced
the project manager and commissioned an outside study to
decide how to proceed.
In a hearing last month, members of Congress needled Hinson
about imposing some kind of punishment for the delays, either
on FAA officials or on IBM. Hinson fended them off. ``I am
less interested in affixing blame for the past poor showings
than I am with shaping and managing a program that will
accomplish what we need,'' he said.
Now a new player has entered the scene. In March, defense
conglomerate Loral bought the IBM division handling the job.
To date, however, the FAA has not formally transferred the
job to Loral
While Loral lobbies to preserve as much of the work as it
can, companies such as Hughes Aircraft Co., BDM International
Inc., Raytheon Co. and Unisys Corp., which all make air
traffic control equipment, are telling Congress that their
products could be substituted for parts of what Loral is
supposed to develop.
At a recent hearing, Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz
proposed pushing the testing schedule back to give more time
to ensure soundness of the software.
Hinson has promised decisions by the end of May. But in the
hearing, he gave a hint of his direction: ``To the extent
feasible,'' he said, ``high-risk activities will be minimized
and the use of available, off-the-shelf technology will be a
preferred option.''
Doing so may entail junking some of the advanced features
of the system but getting something sooner and at lower
costs. After years of promises and failed commitments, many
top officials think that's not a bad trade-off.
Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Exon]
suggests the absence of a quorum.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Under the previous order, the Senator from Maine [Mr. Cohen] is
recognized for not to exceed 10 minutes.
Mr. COHEN. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Cohen and Mr. Ford pertaining to the submission
of Senate Resolution 208 are printed in today's Record under
``Submission of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions.'')
Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Feinstein). The Senator from South
Carolina [ Mr. Thurmond].
Mr. THURMOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed
to speak for 7 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Thurmond] is recognized for not to
exceed 7 minutes.
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