At Monday’s Aero Club of Washington monthly luncheon, the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Bill Shuster (R-PA), shared his vision with nearly 400 attendees, including a number of media, of what the House version of the FAA Reauthorization Bill might look like. (NASAO photo by Kim Stevens)
To no one’s surprise, the chairman laid out his transformational vision for the nation’s air traffic control system, proposing to separate air traffic control from the regulatory and safety functions of the FAA in a not-for-profit type corporation. Shuster said a governing board, made up of industry representation would include protections against any one segment of industry being able to dominate. AIP or the PFC, were not mentioned.
Referred to by one attendee as a drive-by speech, the Chairman did indeed zip in and out and didn’t leave any time for questions. One could presume in order to get back to the Hill to work on the markup, which, according to some reports, could be as early as next week. The Chairman indicated he wanted to get the bill to the floor sometime in July.
