[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 120 (Monday, July 17, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H5917-H5919]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2100
                      KEEPING AMERICA'S SKIES SAFE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bacon). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Abraham) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I am here to talk for a few minutes about 
the FAA reauthorization act, better known as the AIRR Act.
  Now, this particular bill has two components: modernization and 
privatization. President Trump, being a great businessman, the very 
astute businessman that he is, has told us that we need to modernize 
our airspace, our air traffic control facilities, everything that 
allows us to continue to have the safest and busiest airspace, 
literally, in the world, and I agree wholeheartedly with our great 
President that we do need to modernize. The issue that I have is with 
the privatization part.
  As mentioned, our airspace is the busiest it has ever been. On a 
daily basis, somewhere between 87,000 and 88,000 flights take place in 
the airspace of the United States of America.
  We have been asked to compare our air traffic control system with 
that of our great neighbor to the north, Canada, but the issue with 
that, Mr. Speaker, is that Canada only has a small, small fraction of 
the air traffic that we have here in the great United States.
  The U.S. airspace is unique because it is a public resource that is 
accessible to all users, and it is protected by the fact that the air 
traffic organization, under the FAA, is directly accountable to 
Congress, but more importantly, to the American people.
  Handing over that control of air traffic services to a private 
corporation, as this AIRR Act wants to do, will put the interests that 
right now are under the tutelage of air traffic control to a board of 
directors that may not have the interests of the American taxpayer and 
the consumer as its foremost priority.
  Under the plan that is in the AIRR Act, this corporation will not be 
answerable to Congress. The only thing they will have to do is to 
provide reports on its operations every now and then. Under this plan, 
Congress has ceded its oversight over a major component of interstate 
commerce and, might I add--very important--national defense.
  There is also very little oversight from our executive branch, the 
President. Decisions by the corporation to change safety standards or 
to reduce air traffic services will be subject to minimal scrutiny from 
the Department of Transportation. Also, as stated, the President will 
have limited authority to take command of the airspace unless there is 
a declaration of war.
  On the cost and the funding uncertainties, I have an issue with this 
AIRR Act. The CBO predicts that this plan will cost the Federal 
Government--which, by the way, is us, taxpayers--$21 billion over the 
10-year budget window, but this doesn't take into account any other 
factors that will probably exceed that cost by many, many billions, and 
that is with a B. The administration's fiscal 2018 budget paints a 
fuller picture of the costs, and it estimates a $46 billion cost over 
the same 10-year period.
  Mr. Speaker, we have got enough budget problems without adding more 
gasoline to the fire.
  The problem is that this revenue is critical for filling the Airport 
and Airway Trust Fund, which pays for popular programs like the Airport 
Improvement Program that communities all across the country rely on for 
their airport improvements, to pay for infrastructure upgrades, runway 
overlays, lighting, taxiways, those types of things that are essential 
for an airport to work.
  The FAA bill before us authorizes more funding for the Airport 
Improvement Fund program, which is great, but it is still uncertain 
where these funds will come from. What makes up for the shortfall? I 
don't see it in this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I represent a great swath of the great State of 
Louisiana, good, good people, a lot of them in a rural community that 
are far away from any major metropolitan areas. My concern with this 
AIRR Act is that a private corporation concerned with raising money 
from user fees will be heavily incentivized to go to where the users 
are: the East Coast and the West Coast.
  My question and my very much concern is: What happens to all of us in 
between that East Coast and West Coast? I worry that we will be left 
out of the mix and be left out of the equation because we will not be 
as able to contribute to user fees because of the population.
  Decisions to change air traffic services can too easily be justified 
by this corporation, this private corporation that is talked about in 
this AIRR Act, and will face minimal scrutiny from the Department of 
Transportation.
  A reduction in air traffic control services means a reduction in 
enplanements and a reduction in revenue at small, regional airports, 
just as I alluded to, and this makes it even harder to access the 
funding from the Airport Improvement Program.
  All of these factors taken together will exacerbate the problem with 
access to air travel for 95-plus percent of the people in America, and 
this is hard for rural areas. They have a hard enough time making ends 
meet. They don't need the extra costs and the extra burden of traveling 
to a large city, maybe spending the night at a hotel to catch an early 
flight, the cost of transportation just so they can catch a flight to 
some other part of the United States.
  The taxpayer seems to be on the hook here, too, under this AIRR Act. 
Under the plan, the Federal Government would simply hand over all the 
air traffic control assets to the private corporation free of charge, 
and this will negate decades and hundreds of billions--again, that is 
with a B--of dollars in taxpayer investments that the corporation will 
be able to dispose of and sell as it sees fit.
  The plan will also create a potential multibillion-dollar unfunded 
liability for the Departmen of Defense to upgrade its systems to be 
interoperable with the new ATC corporation. What if the private 
corporation has one set of systems, our Department of Defense doesn't 
have that, but they have got to be talking to each other? This is a 
national security issue.

  And again, who pays for that? Well, again, the taxpayers would 
certainly be on the hook to bring the Department of Defense up to 
speed. Again, this is something that we need to look very, very closely 
at in this bill.
  The board of the corporation is not restricted in how much debt it 
can take on, and this sets up a very dangerous potential for a taxpayer 
bailout that, although this bill says it won't happen, I again question 
because these are the same types of promises that we got with Fannie 
Mae and Freddie Mac,

[[Page H5918]]

and we know what happened then and how much the taxpayer had to dole 
out to bail them out.
  I have alluded to the safety and national security issue, and I want 
to hit that a little bit harder.
  Under the plan, the oversight from the air traffic safety 
organization--it is called ATSOS, Air Traffic Safety Oversight 
Service--sunsets after 2 years. My question with this AIRR Act is: What 
happens after the 2-year window? Who watches the gate?
  And I do worry about that.
  What happens if there are major safety breaches? And certainly we 
don't want any accidents, but what happens if there is a major accident 
after 2 years?
  When it comes to the operation of our skies--safety, safety, safety. 
It trumps everything because we have lives at risk every day.
  I go back to my opening remarks. We have the safest system, airspace 
in the world, and I am concerned that this safety could be jeopardized 
if our airspace is controlled by a private entity that is primarily 
motivated by raising revenue.
  Control of our airspace is a critical function of national security. 
As Federal agencies, the FAA and the Department of Defense currently 
share airspace, training systems, assets, equipment, and information. 
Divorcing ATC, air traffic control, functions from the Federal 
Government and inserting an unaccountable third-party private 
contractor into the coordination of our airspace will make us more 
vulnerable to attack.
  The private ATC corporation that the AIRR Act is touting will have 
access to highly sensitive information regarding strategic operations 
in our airspace without the same standards of protection that are 
required of Federal agencies, so I worry about leaks, those types of 
issues.
  There is also a labor issue that, really, nobody is looking at, I am 
afraid, in this AIRR Act. I know many air traffic controllers 
personally. I fly in the United States airspace personally a lot. These 
are good, dedicated people, and I admire the work that they do every 
day to safely operate our skies; however, the major labor unions 
successfully negotiated to get every carve-out they wanted under this 
plan.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a small government guy. I am the guy that stands up 
on the curb and says we need less government. There are limited areas 
where I personally believe government, our Federal Government, should 
be involved, but those are national defense, national security, major 
infrastructure projects like interstates, maintenance of large river 
systems, and aerospace and airspace. Everything else, let's let the 
States and the local governments handle it. I think they can do a 
better job.
  But in this case, in our national airspace where we have both 
civilian and military operating, again, tens of thousands of times a 
day, then we need to take a step back and look at our safety record. It 
has been impeccable for the last several years, and these air traffic 
controllers are doing a phenomenal job.
  My concern, again, is that this private corporation that is in this 
AIRR Act that we will be asked to vote on will be required to hire all 
Federal air traffic organization employees, but they will continue to 
contribute to their Federal benefits and healthcare and continue to 
collectively bargain with their union representatives.
  So, for me, trying to argue that this model of ``privatization''--and 
I will use that in quotation marks--will increase efficiency and keep 
operational costs down, these labor provisions that we are giving them 
in this bill are not a very good ringing endorsement. So if we are 
going to talk privatization, let's not have a hybrid here. We need to 
keep it the way it is.
  The airspace in America, no one can compare the size, the traffic, 
the complexity. It is just a phenomenal work of art that happens every 
day and, again, in a very safe manner. Try to compare us in America 
with any other system, whether it be the United Kingdom, whether it be 
Canada. It is like comparing apples to oranges. Again, our volume is so 
massive compared to any other country that you really can't compare 
them at all.
  I want to give you an example. I wrote this down so I would get it 
right.
  It says, in 2016, the FAA handled over 16 million flights in the 
U.S.--16 million, think about that--while NAV CANADA, which is the 
private corporation that handles Canada's airspace, only handled 5 
million, 5.5 million, in the same year.

                              {time}  2115

  It is impossible to say whether a system similar to Canada's could be 
adopted in the United States. Mr. Speaker, I have flown in Canadian 
airspace. I have lost radar contact; I have lost communications; and 
that is, again, not any shun on Canada. They are a vast, large country 
with large swaths that are uncovered with radar, I am sure. But again, 
when I am up there talking to them, the times I have been up there, 
there may be only one other aircraft in the system or in that area with 
me.
  Back in the United States, I have been in many situations in large 
areas like Dallas, Houston, or Chicago where it is so busy that you 
have to wait to get a word in edgewise. But when you do, you get very 
succinct instruction. You get vectored properly the right way, and you 
get separation of the small guys like myself from the large guys like 
the big airline carriers. Again, this routine happens thousands and 
thousands of times a day, and it happens without incident or accident.
  So again, we have got a system that is working. Again, I am all for 
modernization. We need new equipment. We need better equipment for our 
airports and for our air traffic controllers. Again, if it makes the 
system work more efficiently, I am all for that. But again, why take 
the air traffic controllers that have done such a great job for so many 
years out of the loop.
  Modernization should be a goal of any system, and it doesn't just 
mean our airspace. Anything we can do in government to make it better 
and more efficient, I am all for it. Again, I am your less government 
guy. But in this instance, privatization of air traffic controllers is 
not the answer, especially when it means handing over the control of 
our airspace, the taxpayers' airspace, to a private board unaccountable 
to the Federal Government.
  And I don't know, Mr. Speaker, but history tells me that they may 
come running back to Congress for a bailout when times get tough. I 
hope that doesn't happen if this bill should pass. Again, I am opposed 
to the bill. But we know it has happened so many times in the past when 
we have allowed situations like this to develop.
  Can the Federal Government do a better job in implementing NextGen 
technology? NextGen technology is the next generation. Again, we live 
in a phenomenal world of technology. I am living proof of a pilot that 
used to fly with what we called steam gauges, where we had to look at 
things much differently. Now I fly in a cockpit that is completely 
digital. I am in awe of what I am flying in my little airplane as 
compared to what I was flying in just a few years ago. But we want that 
technology to be handled in the proper way. The FAA management issue 
can be fixed by this Congress.
  Again, I go back. We have invested billions of dollars in this next 
generation technology. I simply don't want to take that pile of money 
and that technology and hand it to this private corporation and say: 
``Here, guys, it is yours now.''
  This is not what we are paid to do up here in Congress. We are paid 
to watch the taxpayers' money. Hopefully, part of our job is to watch 
where this money goes and to make sure it is spent wisely.
  The uncertainty and the lost time of transferring this air traffic 
control to a private board will only cause delays. Again, I go back to 
what we have done in the past with other entities where we have tried 
to move from a Federal or a government agency to a private agency or 
vice versa. The transition time is usually lengthy. It is usually 
inefficient, and mistakes are made.
  Here, Mr. Speaker, we are not talking just about civilian travel. We 
are talking about our Department of Defense, so it becomes a safety 
issue and a national security issue.
  Modernization and privatization are not synonymous. They are actually 
two diverse courses that really have no business in the same bill. We 
should continue to take steps to provide adequate funding for the FAA 
and remove

[[Page H5919]]

barriers for modernization while maintaining U.S. airspace as the 
safest and most accessible in the world.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to commend everyone who has worked on this 
bill. There have been, I am sure, countless hours. There are some good 
things in this bill that we need to do. I have addressed the 
modernization issue. But again, it is the privatization of our air 
traffic control that gives me pause and that gives me great concern on 
some of the issues that I have mentioned here in this short period of 
time.
  So I want to take a step back from this AIRR Act. I want to work with 
my colleagues, see what we can do to get it right and keep our skies 
safe. Once again I will say: I am the guy that wants less government. 
This is one of the few areas where government has done a good job, will 
continue to do a good job, and of those 87,000 flights a day, keep them 
safe.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time

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