[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5964]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           FAA FLIGHT DELAYS

  (Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, this week, the Chicago 
Tribune published an editorial that stated what many of us have known 
for months: the administration is playing political games by attempting 
to make the sequestration as painful as possible on Americans, 
especially traveling Americans.
  The FAA furloughs announced this week, they're not just wrong, 
they're irresponsible. The bottom line is the FAA has the flexibility 
to find money and minimize the impact to the traveling public. Even 
more concerning is that the FAA has chosen not to implement the 
furloughs in a way that could protect the most critical air traffic 
control operations and facilities. They are indiscriminately 
furloughing everyone in the FAA.
  Air traffic controllers are being furloughed at the same rate as 
noncontrollers, and furloughs are being applied at the same rate 
regardless of the airport size. Waterloo in Iowa is not Chicago O'Hare. 
The FAA needs to manage better, and they need to do it now.
  There is still time for the administration and the FAA to reverse 
course on these decisions and start making the right decision instead 
of trying to simply score political points by playing the political 
game of chicken.

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