[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         21ST CENTURY AIRR ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, Congress has just approved an FAA extension 
to fund the agency for 6 months, but our work is not done. We have a 
responsibility to pass a long-term FAA bill that ensures America 
remains a leader in aviation.
  The status quo means American aviation manufacturing will lose out to 
competitors in Europe, China, Brazil, and Canada. We will lose jobs. It 
means the drone industry will continue to go overseas for testing and 
development. That is more lost jobs. The status quo means more delays 
and lost time for our passengers.
  Let me read you a quote: ``The FAA is the only agency of government 
worse at procurement than the Pentagon. Congress has tried to reform 
it; it didn't stick. We have got to try something different to get it 
to be more agile to give us 21st century equipment and software that we 
need.''
  Mr. Speaker, that is not my quote. I am quoting the ranking member of 
the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. And that, based on 
what he has said and what we have seen over the last 20 years, that is 
why it is time to reform the FAA.
  With my Republican and Democratic colleagues, I have introduced H.R. 
2997, the 21st Century AIRR Act. Like all major reforms, there have 
been false claims made against this bipartisan bill. The false issues I 
want to address are from general aviation.
  My colleagues and I, including Sam Graves, worked with the general 
aviation community to include everything they have asked for in this 
bill. Not one of their legislative requests was excluded. In fact, 
Congressman Graves now supports the bill because of how far we went to 
address the needs of the GA community. We did so because general 
aviation is vital to our unique aviation system, and I would never 
sponsor legislation that harms my own rural community and the GA pilots 
and the several hundred GA pilots who live within it.
  Here is what the general aviation community asked for:
  They did not want to pay user fees to use air traffic control 
services, and they won't. All they have to do is look at page 83 in the 
bill. The only entity that will be able to change this is Congress, 
just like it is today.
  They did not want any airspace restrictions. This bill prohibits 
airspace restrictions for the GA, and just look at page 114 to find 
that. In fact, GA doesn't have that guarantee today. Our bill actually 
puts that guarantee in law for the first time.
  They wanted to fully fund the Airport Improvement Program. I want to 
fully fund the Airport Improvement Program, in part, because it helps 
my district and small- and medium-sized airports in rural communities 
around this country. AIP will be funded the way it has been in the 
past, and it will be, going forward, by the traveling public.
  Currently, AIP funding is flatlined at $3.3 billion a year, but over 
the course of the bill, we will raise that up to almost $4 billion, and 
you will find that on page 7 of the bill.
  GA wanted parity on the board, and they got it, the ability to 
nominate two board members. So the board will be balanced. It will 
include airports, pilots, controllers, commercial passenger carriers, 
cargo carriers, regional carriers, general aviation, business aviation, 
plus the government will put two seats on the board.

                              {time}  1045

  A super majority will choose two independent board members, and then 
they will choose a CEO.
  Yet even when faced with these facts in black and white text, 
opponents of reform still claim these guarantees are not in the bill. 
Ask a member of the GA community what we can do to get their support, 
and they will say: ``Nothing.'' They want to keep the status quo.
  Unfortunately, a few Washington special interests that represent 
business jets oppose this commonsense reform. Think about it this way: 
850 million passengers will fly commercially every year, and that 
number will go to a billion over the next 10 years; this bill is real 
reform that will benefit them at no cost and harm to the business jet 
aviation; in fact, every person that flies commercially subsidizes 
business jets using the air traffic control system.
  A small number of GA owners, the number is about 500,000, are 
opposing something that will benefit a billion passengers that will fly 
annually.
  Another thing that was brought up is that we harm the defense of this 
country. That is absolutely not true. As a senior member of the Armed 
Services Committee, I would never do anything that would harm the 
defense of this country. And Secretary Mattis and Deputy Secretary of 
Defense Shanahan have been on the Hill, have written letters supporting 
our efforts to this fact.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this is not speculation. This reflects 
the very carefully drafted text of the bill that the House will vote on 
in the coming days. I encourage Members to read the bill and come to us 
with questions.
  This bipartisan bill has broad and diverse support. For example, 
Heritage Action, the pilots and the air traffic controller union, and 
the flight attendants union all support this very bipartisan bill, a 
bill that will transform aviation in this country, keep us competitive, 
keep us safe, and keep us efficient.
  I ask all my colleagues to support the bipartisan H.R. 2997.

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