[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 117 (Tuesday, July 8, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4249-S4250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Bryan Bedford

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in 
opposition to the nomination of Bryan Bedford to serve as the FAA 
Administrator--the Federal Aviation Administration. Everyone knows that 
the FAA is at a critical point in its history. The tragic midair 
collision that we had in DC on January 29 took the lives of 67 people 
and made it clear what was at stake to all of us.
  The National Transportation Safety Board, in their subsequent 
findings earlier this year, said that over 15,000 close calls took 
place around DCA over the past 3 years alone, demonstrating that we and 
the aviation industry have much more work to do to raise the safety 
bar.
  The FAA and its workforce are facing historic challenges. Within 
weeks of the DCA crash, the Trump administration fired hundreds of FAA 
officials, including technical operations staff who help make it 
possible for air traffic controllers to do their jobs and specialists 
who design FAA route flight maps.
  With air traffic system outages and a clear directive from Congress 
to implement stronger safety regulations, career officials with decades 
of aviation experience have been pushed to leave. Just to be clear, I 
am referring to the fact that we passed an FAA 5-year authorization, 
and we said we need stronger safety regulations, and we need more 
hands-on experience, not shortcuts for the individuals that are helping 
us implement safety plans.
  As a result, senior leaders at multiple FAA lines of business have 
already left or are in the process of leaving, and the FAA has lost 
about 3 percent of its workforce--more than 1,200 employees--to the 
deferred resignation program.
  An FAA presentation obtained by the Wall Street Journal in May 
revealed that the FAA is internally sounding the alarm about the 
impacts from those staffing shortages. The presentation warned that the 
Agency's ability to work on runway safety, process medical clearances 
for air traffic controllers, and fulfill its statutory and regulatory 
requirements were all at risk.
  The next FAA Administrator will have an overarching mission that will 
be a huge challenge: ensuring the United States remains the global gold 
standard for aviation safety. And in order to keep 2.9 million 
commercial airline passengers safe each day, the next Administrator 
must prioritize investing in the FAA safety workforce.
  These challenges underscore why we should have an Administrator who 
is willing to strengthen the safety standards, instead of seeking ways 
to get around them. When we look at the record of aviation safety, Mr. 
Bedford has been on the frontlines, obviously working in the aviation 
sector, but also in a frontline effort to roll back safety reforms and 
unravel the regulatory framework that has made the United States the 
gold standard.
  Since 1999, Mr. Bedford has been the president and CEO of Republic 
Airways, one of the largest regional airlines in North America. And for 
over a decade, he has consistently fought to change the FAA's 1,500-
hour rule, which is a key safety provision that was implemented in 2013 
following the tragic crash of a regional jet--Colgan Air Flight 3407 
near Buffalo, NY, that killed 49 people.
  The rule sets strong pilot training and first officer qualification 
standards to ensure that both pilots have the appropriate experience to 
react to in an in-flight emergency. Instead of recognizing how this 
rule was developed through the public debate and notice and comment 
period, Mr. Bedford has called it arbitrary. That means the FAA went 
through a very big process, but Mr. Bedford thinks that was 
``arbitrary'' and ``does nothing to further the goal of increased 
flight safety.''
  Mr. Bedford has then led a trade association that spent millions of 
dollars lobbying against the 1,500-hour rule and other pilot training 
policies, including as recently as the first quarter of this year. And 
in 2022, Mr. Bedford's company petitioned the FAA for an exemption from 
the 1,500-hour rule. That effort failed, but as head of the FAA, he 
will be in the very job that he basically tried to lobby to say, Let's 
weaken safety standard rules.
  The effort that Mr. Bedford tried when he was in the private sector 
failed, but as I said, as the head of FAA, he could hold power over the 
Agency to weaken what has become a very bedrock 1,500-hour to help us 
make sure that both pilots and copilots are appropriately trained.
  My colleagues and I gave Mr. Bedford multiple chances in our Commerce 
Committee nomination hearing to tell us that he, if confirmed, would 
not weaken that rule, but he repeatedly refused to give us an answer or 
commitment. To me, that was the evidence that I needed to understand, 
if the 1,500-hour rule, which has been in place since the Colgan Air 
tragedy, could be at risk if Mr. Bedford were confirmed.
  Mr. Bedford would not commit to recusing himself from ruling on his 
own company's exemption request from the 1,500-hour rule for the 
entirety of his 5-year term as FAA Administrator. In other words, he 
could decide to grant his own company an exemption, the same thing he 
tried to do when he was in the private sector lobbying the FAA.
  Mr. Bedford's hearing testimony was so concerning that the Colgan Air 
Flight 3407 families have publicly opposed his nomination. These are 
families who have become the bedrock of safety. They move forward with 
their lives, but they also come to Capitol Hill each year to protect 
aviation safety standards.
  The families said that Mr. Bedford's clear aim to weaken the 1,500-
hour rule ``sends the wrong message to every American passenger and 
every family that has ever boarded a domestic flight.''
  This represents, I think, a very big challenge for us right now. Too 
often, carriers operating under tight profit margins and resource 
constraints focus on reactive measures rather than proactive safety 
improvements. What we need is a proactive Administrator. We need 
somebody who is fighting for the safety improvements to prevent

[[Page S4250]]

the accidents in the first place. And at this critical moment, we need 
an FAA Administrator who will break from this reactive safety culture 
and provide the proactive safety leadership that we need to prevent 
problems before they happen.
  Even Captain ``Sully'' Sullenberger, the pilot who performed the 
Miracle on the Hudson, is also opposing Mr. Bedford's nomination. 
Captain Sullenberger recognized that Mr. Bedford ``is not willing to 
uphold the critically important pilot experience requirements put in 
place in 2010 that have been so effective in ensuring the safety of the 
traveling public.'' He went on to warn that:

       With the nomination of Bryan Bedford to be the FAA 
     Administrator, my life's work could be undone.

  I am sure that Captain Sullenberger understands the importance of 
having two pilots. At a hearing before the Commerce Committee, when I 
asked him about the 1,500-hour rule, he said:

       In an emergency, you really don't even have time to talk. 
     The two pilots both need to be doing their jobs and doing it 
     well.

  So Mr. Bedford has also signaled an openness to something else I have 
concern about, green-lighting a single pilot on commercial flights. 
This is a real issue. The FAA's European civil aviation authority 
counterpart EASA is thinking about certifying extended single pilot 
operations on commercial aircraft. That means it is being debated in 
Europe and could be debated in other places. That is right; they are 
debating whether to have just one pilot on a long-haul flight.
  In 2019, when Mr. Bedford was discussing the emerging technologies 
underpinning single pilot operations, he said:

       Does it work? It works. Can it work highly, reliably, and 
     safely? I think it can.

  Well, you don't have to be an expert in understanding the risk of 
flying with just one pilot. In the past, aviation incidents have been 
documented by the NTSB--the National Transportation Safety Board--and 
they have cited that pilot incapacity or mental health emergencies as 
justifications for requiring two pilots on a commercial flight.
  I don't care how good the technology is; if an emergency happens, we 
need two well-trained pilots on the flight deck at all times. Mr. 
Bedford has been given many opportunities to talk about these past 
statements and how he sees the world. But again, he did not do so.
  When his company sought an exemption from the 1,500-hour rule in 
2022, they championed diversity initiatives, saying they would have 
``no adverse impact on safety.'' But when asked by Senator Lujan at the 
committee if he thought so-called ``DEI'' policies contributed to the 
collision near DCA earlier this year--which President Trump baselessly 
alleged--Mr. Bedford said he had ``no earthly idea.'' This 
inconsistency is troubling.
  So we need to make sure that we are selecting a nominee who has a 
track record of supporting a proactive FAA. Mr. Bradbury, the Deputy 
Transportation Secretary, is implementing ``10-for-1`` policies--
meaning Agencies must eliminate 10 regulations for every new one. DOT 
officials can now face disciplinary action if they don't comply with 
the administration's decision not to enforce certain regulations. The 
Washington Post has characterized this move as ``a chilling effect on 
enforcement.'' And as I said earlier, DOT inspectors and investigators 
will fear that they could be fired just for doing their job ensuring 
the safety of the flying public.
  We don't, Mr. President, need a light touch. We need to make sure 
that while industry concerns are heard, they shouldn't be the dominant 
factor. The FAA needs to implement the gold standard for aviation 
safety.
  There are many critical tasks ahead, including implementing a safety 
management system at the FAA and ensuring that Boeing, after the 737 
MAX crashes, also implements its required safety management system. I 
want to make sure that an Administrator is not going to try to halt 
that rule, but will get that rule implemented, so that we know that 
manufacturing and the FAA are making the flying public safer every day 
by doing their jobs properly.
  So, Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to please reject the 
nomination of Mr. Bedford. I think we need an FAA Administrator who 
makes really tough decisions that put the priority of the flying public 
first.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). The Senator from Texas.