NBAA Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Public Policy & Advocacy Christa Lucas has been named to the Policy Board of the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE), a nonprofit group that works to implement advanced transportation technologies, vehicles and fuels that reduce pollution and fossil fuel dependency.
“CTE is exploring ways to translate the success we have enjoyed in zero-emission transit to other transportation sectors,” said Dan Raudebaugh, CTE’s executive director. “Christa Lucas will be able to provide valuable guidance in bringing zero-emission technologies to the aviation industry.”
CTE’s Policy Board is a subsection of the organization’s Board of Directors, focused on strengthening advocacy efforts in Washington, DC and Sacramento, CA. The group said in a statement that Lucas’s public policy experience in transportation and aviation “will bring valuable experience to the board and will ultimately contribute to the advancement of CTE’s mission, especially in emerging markets like zero-emission airport transportation and air travel.” As a member of the Policy Board, Lucas will support the implementation of CTE’s legislative agenda.
In her current role with NBAA, Lucas oversees the organization’s outreach to Congress, the federal administration, state and local governments, the aviation community and grassroots programs. Lucas said that a big priority for NBAA is its work in innovation and sustainability, and how to fully integrate that into the overall transportation system.
“The work we’re doing in innovation and sustainability is top of mind for CTE,” she said.
Lucas said that there is a lot of synergy between NBAA and CTE, especially with advanced air mobility (AAM) – which uses electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to move people and cargo between places, and can be powered by hybrid electric systems, batteries or potentially hydrogen fuel cells.
Lucas leads NBAA’s Advanced Air Mobility Roundtable, a forum for high-level policy planning with sector leaders, to chart a course for the integration of AAM technologies into the nation’s airspace and transportation infrastructure.
“With AAM, the goal is full integration into our transportation system, which would involve transit and other connections and we are focused on charging capabilities as well,” she said. “We have to get policymakers and local communities thinking about our transportation system for the future, not what we have today.”
While policymakers have focused on charging stations for cars, buses and trucks, Lucas said aviation will be next.
Prior to joining NBAA, Lucas worked at the FAA, where she was the associate administrator for airports, overseeing a $3.35 billion annual federal airport grants program and passenger facility charge collections totaling $2 billion. Before that, she was deputy assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, serving as the principal advisor to the secretary on a broad portfolio of responsibilities. Earlier, she worked on Capitol Hill.
