{"id":11923,"date":"2019-02-12T16:36:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T16:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/?p=11923"},"modified":"2019-02-12T20:00:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T20:00:54","slug":"house-transportation-chairman-tells-aero-club-new-legislation-would-protect-faa-from-shutdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/national-news\/house-transportation-chairman-tells-aero-club-new-legislation-would-protect-faa-from-shutdowns\/%20","title":{"rendered":"House Transportation Chairman Tells Aero Club \u2013 New Legislation Would Protect FAA from Shutdowns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Rep. Peter DeFazio<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Michael J. Schoen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never again will the FAA be impacted by a government\nshutdown, if the recently-elected head of the House Transportation &\nInfrastructure Committee has his way. This was Chairman Peter DeFazio\u2019s key\nmessage on Friday, February 8th, during a wide-ranging speech to the Aero Club\nof Washington, DC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing a ballroom packed with 350 people from more than\na dozen major aviation trade groups, companies, and other organizations,\nDeFazio announced that just hours earlier, he and House Aviation Subcommittee\nChairman Rick Larsen had introduced the Aviation Stability Act of 2019 (H.R.\n1108). This was met with exuberant cheers from the delighted (but unsurprised)\ncrowd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promising that the bill would be promptly marked up by his committee, the Chairman described it as a \u201csimple\u201d piece of legislation. One that would draw on the Airport & Airway Trust Fund to sustain \u201cfull operation [of all] . . . FAA functions\u201d in the event of future shutdowns \u2013 without any action by Congress. He was careful to add that the funds would be repaid once the government reopened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chairman went on to point out that the latest shutdown\u2019s\nimpact on the FAA was \u201cvery disruptive\u201d to the \u201ccritical\u201d aviation\ninfrastructure of the United States, and must be prevented from happening\nagain. Yet whether this is actually possible remains to be seen, with another\npotential shutdown looming on February 16th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drone Strikes Inevitable; Airline Seats Too Small. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving to other topics on his agenda, DeFazio addressed subjects such as the Passenger Facility Charge, urban air mobility, \u201cdrones,\u201d and counter-drone technology. He warned that, in light of the increasing number of incidents involving drones at and around airports, it\u2019s \u201conly a matter of time\u201d before there\u2019s a serious drone strike. He described such an event as being potentially \u201c[far] worse than the impact of a large bird,\u201d according to information provided to him by the FAA. The Chairman even went so far as to say that a drone strike could equal the fatal engine failure experienced by Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, in April of 2018. He promised, however, that there will be \u201cvigorous oversight\u201d of unmanned aircraft during his leadership of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chairman DeFazio also spoke of the need to regulate the\ndomestic airline industry in a way that balances the interests of carriers and\ntheir passengers. For example, in talking about airplane seats, he noted that\n\u201cmost American\u2019s don\u2019t fit anymore,\u201d stating that airlines \u201ccan\u2019t keep cramming\nthem in.\u201d He emphasized that seating must allow passengers to evacuate within\n90 seconds. Yet on the other hand, he said, Congress cannot mandate that\nairlines provide their passengers with comfortable seats. For that, passengers\nmay have to pay extra \u2013 even if only for \u201cpseudo\u201d comfort, he joked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael J. Schoen Never again will the FAA be impacted by a government shutdown, if the recently-elected head of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has his way. This was Chairman Peter DeFazio\u2019s key message on Friday, February 8th, during a wide-ranging speech to the Aero Club of Washington, DC. Addressing a ballroom packed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11937,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11923\/revisions\/11937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}