Transcripts For CSPAN3 FAA 20240704

[background noises] a subcommittee on a visual consort is unescos at the chairman authorized to declare recess without objections ordered also ask you nose consent the subcommittee on aviation will come to order. We are authorized to declare recess any time during todays meeting. Members may ask questions without objection. As a reminder, members wishing to insert a document into the order email the documents. I now recognize myself for the purpose of an Opening Statement for five minutes. Thank you for being here, administrator whitaker. I want to congratulate you for your unanimous confirmation. As you know, achieving Something Like that in todays times is quite remarkable. We appreciate your expertise and look forward to working with you. I hope you understand that is strong support from congress, but also enormous recognition of the responsibility of the job you have now taken on. We have heard a lot of descriptions about americas Aviation Industry. Everything from it is the Gold Standard, its the leading edge of technology, and we have also seen in recent months that we have had incredible challenges in the Aviation Industry. I cant say enough that the Aviation Industry needs to be successful. And needs to be successful in terms of technology, regulatory stability, safety, and more importantly which folks often lose sight of, the Passenger Experience. Every american enjoys the enormous benefit of the collaborative work. Aviation has never been safer or more prosperous. The Aerospace Industry is hundreds of millions of people every year, creates millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in Economic Activity and forms a critical pillar. Maintaining the Gold Standard should be an Urgent National priority. The only guaranteed Gold Standard is that what got us there yesterday is not going to be what keeps us their tomorrow. In the past year, as ive noted we have seen several aircraft manufacturing defects, injun fires, a whole passenger airplane destroyed by fire, near misses at the airports, ramp worker deaths, tyrant Mental Health issues, general accidents, poor Airline Customer service especially for disabled passengers and other challenges. The subcommittee has received testimony about faa organization and struggles that the agency has had with groans, vehicles, commercial space transportation and Cyber Security in the National Airspace system and in updating the technology that is needed to ensure the efficiency of performance of their Traffic Control systems. Im sure in every one of those instances you can find a provision in the past faa bill to address those issues. I will say that again. For every one of those issues you can find provisions in the house passed faa bill that addresses them. I want to remind you we passed the bill month 10 months ago and well before the september 30 expiration. That did not happen by mistake. We worked methodically. I want to thank Ranking Member larsen and Ranking Member cohen. Sam graves and all of the Aviation Team for plowing through literally thousands upon thousands of stakeholder and public and member of congress requests. Ultimately yielded a strong, bipartisan bill. Despite the differences in the house could it was successful passing the bill by a vote of 351 69. Similar to your confirmation vote in these times it is absolutely extraordinary. The bill has received support from all corners of the sector, labor members of the faa workforce, commercial aviation groups representing passengers, airports, and on and on. The house produce legislation has transformative changes in the Passenger Experience and private aviation. It provides advanced mobility space the regulatory certainty they need to deploy some of the most advanced technologies theyve seen in aviation. They also expedited processes. The bill contains numerous provisions aimed at improving aviation safety. With all of these accidents, near misses, and problems it is nothing short of malpractice that the senate has not bothered to even mark up the faa reauthorization. The repeated failure has destroyed 650 million in investments this year alone. It delayed enactment of urgently needed safety measures. Theres never been a worse time to leave the faa unauthorized yet thats where the senate in action has left us. You are doing the best you can with the job you have, but it is clear to me that the sendiks an ability to do its job has realworld consequences that affect aviation and the safety of the traveling public. We are ready, willing, and able to support the reauthorization bill when the senate is ready. Hopefully you can do something to help us with that. Hopefully the conversation we have today underscores the urgency of getting a longterm bill signed into law. I now recognize Ranking Member cohen for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair. I just want to say i disagree with everything he said that we need to fund ukraine and israel at the same time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Whitaker for coming before us today. It is such an important time in aviation. We appreciate that. It is important that we have leadership. Most of the people in the industry for the last six, seven, eight months need a strong administrator. I think everyone is pleased with your selection. We have had recent problems which are not your fault, with boeing and the 737 max 9, the Japanese Airline collision, increased runway incursions have been around for a while. I know that is on top of your mind with the they are Getting Better with more air Traffic Controllers. We need to get a pipeline going for everybody to get an opportunity to participate. The prompt response to the january 5 boeing incident resulted in the granting of more than 170 aircraft. What you have to back, i think everybody agrees and appreciates. Boeing must be held accountable. Safety is first. That needs to be made clear. This demonstrates that complacency is a luxury we cannot afford when it comes to aviation safety. We need to be sure this does not happen again with doors falling off in the middle of the air. Is the faa and ntsb investigations, the subcommittee will stand ready to work with you and all parties to enact legislative changes necessary. Of course, the first thing we need to do is get the reauthorization bill passed. Weve done our job now it is your job to get the senate to do their job. I want to thank all of the faa employees that work today to ensure no stone is left unturned when it came to reviewing the inspections and implementing the instructions to be sure their aircraft could safely transport customer skin. Ntsb chair did a great job and shes having some of us over for a briefing later today. Based on what has been communicated to us thus far, the work has been outstanding. So march 8 is quickly approaching. We need our senate colleagues. The air Traffic Control has more people and is beefed up. So we havent to pass a bill that contains hundreds of provisions and ensures robust future. That bill passed overwhelmingly bipartisan. We hope the senate can be bipartisan as well. I look forward to your testimony. I appreciate the work of chairman graves. Thank you, making member larsen. We put together a bid good bill and we hope that we can have the confidence of the American Public. The french have already made overtures and what they are trying to do to make sure there are safe planes produced all over the world. Its an important industry to america. Good luck and thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member cohen. Now recognizing chairman graves. Thank you. For the hearing, thank you administrative whitaker for coming in. Its a pleasure to have you before the aviation committee. The United States Aviation System has been a major focus of our work in this congress. Last year, it has been the theme here so far today. We overwhelmingly passed a comprehensive, bipartisan Aviation Administration reauthorization that will dramatically improve american aviation and the faa. As many improvements have been held up in the senate for more than six months. Unfortunately, it appears the senate is poised to resume its markup of the faa bill in a few days. Look forward to seeing if it finally happens and i look forward to sitting down with our Senate Committee counterparts to start reconciling the bills. Serious issues in the Aviation System, in my mind the consequences of having no long term faa bill or exacerbating them. Now more than ever, we cant afford business as usual or half measures. The American People deserve the aerospace system. While they are depending you to pick up the slack. Many of the provisions of the bill are noncontroversial. They can be implemented by the faa without additional congress. Your staff can start laying the groundwork for an expeditious with the provisions with congressional intent. Today is a great opportunity for members to highlight the aviation priorities that matter to them and ensure that their issues are understood and hopefully addressed. We also want to hear your impressions of the agency since you have taken over the agency since your confirmation, what your priorities are forward. Finally, we look forward to hearing and update on the flight 1282 accident and what you have learned so far. I do want to thank you and your staff for your very Effective Communication thus far relating to the incident. Open communication, i think, is a very important component in the community. Having confidence in the actions taken by the faa will progress. We all share the same goal, ensuring that the safety of the Aviation System and maintaining that Gold Standard that we all talk about. So thank you for coming before the committee. With that, i yelled back the balance of my time thank you. Just one more, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it very much. This hearing comes at a critical time. We continue the reauthorization which expired last september. We have to continue to push for the passage of a comprehensive, longrange 2023 faa reauthorization which passed last july. We must examine the problems that the recent max 9. Safety has always been a top priority. The Aviation System in the u. S. Is responsible for safely transporting hundreds of millions of passengers each year without fear of harm or injury. Americans have the full confidence in our Aviation System. The confidence must be justified. The committee must ensure that they have the tools to conduct investigations with audits and enforcement actions. We remain vigilant to ensure Something Like this likelihood of this accident happening has decreased substantially. The max 9 accident was terrifying to everyone on board but thanks to the common actions of the flight crew but he landed safely. The response to this accident included ground in the affected fleet. A separate investigation into whether boeing delivered a noncompliant aircraft to its customer, looking at the production line and suppliers and a prohibition on increasing the production rate until that is resolved. It is not the first time weve seen aircraft Quality Control issues in recent history. In 2021 we wrote to the department with concerns about no less than nine reports of Quality Control issues at facilities. Since then, there have been reports of similar issues. The safety of any organization flows from the top and i urge leadership to takes time now to examine the culture that is currently instilled and improve. I look forward to the implementation of the certification reform bill which this committee passed including recommendations from the Safety Culture review. They depend on leadership to instill the right policies so they can effectively do their jobs. Dedicated women and men that work at plants and deserve answers and the flying public deserves answers. I look forward to the report and the findings of the investigation. Now moving on to reauthorization. We cant forget the responsibilities. It passed 35169. We are waiting senate action. The bill created a framework for safer, cleaner, more innovative and accessible u. S. Aviation system. On aviation safety there are numerous gaps to be addressed in this authorization which were enumerated in the recent d. O. T. Report. The house bill addresses these issues including the hiring of air Traffic Control, surveillance technology, administrator vinegar whitaker i look forward to hearing your report. We have to do more to ensure that all passengers travel safely and with dignity. A focus on assisting travelers with mobility issues and prevent damage to mobility aids. I want to hear how the faa is working with the d. O. T. For more. Faa reauthorization bill triples funding and the workforce development. I look forward to what the faa can do to rich root recruit and retain. We also need to provide a framework for innovators to work safely and the needs of local communities are addressed. The requirements for joint operations and ensuring the safe travel. I look forward to hearing what youre doing to integrate these technologies. The recent boeing 737 max 9 for plug accident is a reminder. That is in part why the bill needs to move forward so we can start to negotiate a longterm reauthorization to ensure they have the ability to do their important work. Thank you very much. There is a lighting system in front of me. Green, get started. Yellow, get ready to wrap it up, read, it is over. We ask that all statements be included in the record. Also todays hearing remains open until such time that would this is have provided answers to any questions that may have been submitted in writing. The unanimous consent for the record for additional comments have 15 days to be included in the hearing without objection. I yield back. Thank you. Again, administrator whitaker we appreciate you being here today. Your testimony has been included in part of the record. We ask you to limit your remarks to five minutes. With that, administrator whitaker you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairman graves, chairman graves, Ranking Members larsen and cohen, and members of the committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss the priorities of the faa. The number one priority is safety. The reason event involving the boeing 737 max 9 have shown us we cant be complacent in the Aviation System. Expose potential risks of the safety of our airspace in three areas. Safety events, air Traffic Control hiring and kids to do is Safety Improvement. This includes runway incursion and close calls around airports. In response, an independent Safety Review Team to look at these issues. They were reported to me in november. We have implemented many of those recommendations. To mitigate the risk of incursions we are pursuing a range of strategies including better data analytics, control outreach, improved airport signage. We are also excited to continue development and deployment to enhance runway safety. We will continue to enhance this issue until we reach our goal of zero significant safety events. The safety of the u. S. Aviation system is due in large part to the skill of dedicated air Traffic Controllers. To maintain our safety record, the agency must accelerate the pace of recruiting, training, and hiring to meet increasing Traffic Volume and also integrating safely. We are taking immediate steps to grow the workforce through several key initiatives. We are filling every seat at the academy in oklahoma city. We are expanding the use of training and facilities across the country including upgrading simulators at 95 towers. Last week we installed the first tower at Austin Airport in texas. We are working with Aeronautical Colleges to move graduates quickly to onthejob training. During my first three months as administrator i met with controllers in boston, philadelphia, dallas, and here in the tower. In those conversations control or fatigue came up repeatedly caused in large part by shifting schedules and challenging requirements. Increasing our control to help mitigate risks associated with control or fatigue. Additionally we have set up a panel of fatigue experts to review the latest science on sleep needs and how that can be applied to work requirements and scheduling. We expect to receive the report later this spring. The third priority is to continuously improve safety processes and procedures. For example, the air Traffic Safety Oversight Department now reports directly to me. This gives me unfiltered, candid feedback on the state and quality of the organization. We are exploring how the agency can improve Data Accessibility and collaborate with stakeholders to collect and analyze data across the system. Data is crucial to identifying and mitigating significant risks and emerging safety trends. To support these efforts i plan to hold a discussion tomorrow with Senior Leadership on how we can share information transparently and improve Safety Management systems. The need to be vigilant on safety came into focus when the left made cabin door plug blew out of the boeing 737 max 9 shortly after departure. I want to commend the flight and cabin crews for their professionalism and heroic actions to ensure the safety of everyone aboard. Less than 24 hours later the faa took Decisive Action to ground 737 max 9 planes. We performed a safety assessment. We have begun an audit of the Quality Control practices and informed boeing they will not grant any production expansion until we are satisfied that the Quality Control issues uncovered during the process are involved resolved. We will have more boots on the ground scrutinizing and monitoring production. They are encouraged to use the faa hotline to report safety concerns. It will continue to inform our decisionmaking with more than 45,000 dedicated employees who work every day to meet the mission ensure we have the best and safest Aviation System in the world. Im confident in the ability to address challenges. I also want to affirm and really command commend the bipartisan effort in this reauthorization bill. I look forward to working with congress as it finalizes this vital legislation. Thank you for your continued support. I look forward to answering your questions. Think you. I recognize myself her questions. Congress passed the aircraft certification safety and accountability act in response to design flaws which contributed to the crashes of two boeing 737 aircraft. One of the provisions requires manufacturers to implement Safety Management systems. Given what you have learned so far from the Alaska Airlines flight 1282 incident and challenges boeing has had with Quality Control, is the faa considering further action with these requirements for Aircraft Parts suppliers or other entities involved in manufacturing whether that be rulemaking, regulatory changes or requesting changes . That is a great question. The process is really the Core Technology for the safety system. We have a role that pulls this out to manufacturers and operators. Boeing has been voluntarily deploying this system. One thing we have learned in this particular set of circumstances with the alaska flight was we need to make sure the systems are talking to each other. We need to make sure we are getting all the data we can from those systems. To your specific question, the role that is out there covers manufacturers and does not necessarily cover all of the component part manufacturers. I know that there is the ability to impose those terms and we would expect that as part of their Safety Management system they would insist on those types of controls. Thank you. Obviously the committee will would be working closely with you and ntsb to be sure we get this right. Administrator, i will be really candid looking back at what happened in the aftermath of the max 9 incidents. I cannot help but think that the faa had a lot of trouble walking and chewing gum, candidly. I think they really struggled with being able to carry out all of their duties and responsibilities. I heard Ranking Member larsen bring it up as well. The visual line of Sight Aviation Rulemaking Committee submitted its final report nearly 2 years ago. I dont think it was perfect, i think it is a pretty good roadmap on how to move forward. Can you get some projection for what the Aviation Industrys should be expecting . I think there has been a lot of interaction with stakeholders. I know from my roles before taking this position there was some frustration on how quickly that might be moving. We do expect it out this year. It is a priority and we will continue to push it forward. I cannot emphasize enough how important i think it is for the faa to be able to manage all of its various functions to maintain a certain predictability while we are also continuing to advance the Gold Standard of safety in the United States. I agree with that. Thank you. Administrator, there are provisions in the 2016 bill and 2018 bill that have not been fully implemented yet. Here we are advancing a 900 page authorization bill. The bills have a number of identical provisions. While it is very difficult to improve upon perfection, the senate is trying to add some new things. I want to hear from you. What is the faa doing to ensure they will hit the ground running and be able to apply with and implement this bill that is as urgent as the law is in regard to addressing a number of the safety and Passenger Experience issues. What i can say is i can commit to you that when this bill passes we will work hard to put together work plans on all of these various initiatives and communicate with you on our expectations. I think what we can do is make sure we have good, open communication on executing on the provisions of that bill. Administrator, im going to say that as much blood, sweat, and tears as the folks appear and the team has gone through putting this together, striving to reach bipartisan consensus and addressing many of the issues of the Aviation Industry, i hope the faa will treat this as we have in putting the legislation together. We appreciate that effort. Thank you. I recognize Ranking Member cohen for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Administrator, what parts of construction oversight and Quality Assurance are considered delegated by the faa to the manufacturer and how does boeing oversee representatives when they are performing those functions . There are a couple of answers. One, we actually look at a technical level where the delegations are and where the operations are. Quality control and Quality Assurance are a key function. Normally that falls within the purview of that manufacturer although theres no on to have those types of functions done by a third party. I think that is something we want to look at as well. At a macro level, i think with manufacturing there has been an oversight approach that has focused heavily on audit, checking the paperwork to be sure it is correct and making sure systems are in place. We are migrating to a system that i would call audit plus. We will have more of a surveillance component much like you would find on the flight line or maintenance station where inspectors are on the ground talking to people and looking at the work being done. We are proposing at this point to expand the approach to include both audit and inspection which is why we are moving inspectors to the facilities. I presume we would look at whats being done around the world and get best practices . We like to think we are the best practices. We do Pay Attention to what others are doing. In this case i think we know what we need to do next which is to add more on the ground presence to verify what is going on. Think you. The city faa implemented regulations in response to the max 8 crashes. The sections that you highlighted we have completed much of that work. That will has been pushed out. Sms systems are being deployed. The Culture Survey of section 103 is due within a month. Im very much looking forward to getting that data around the Safety Culture. That will inform some of our adjustments to the risk model approach. We have updated the policy and completed standing up for compliance under 122 and 125 inc. Best practices. I will take two of my pet issues which are also important to the committee. That is evacuation of airplanes in 90 seconds and also seat size. We passed laws saying they had to do a study on seat size and evacuation. But they did on evacuation was embarrassingly poor. I think it have nobody over 60 and nobody under seven or eight. The claimant was for liability. They also did not have any dogs or packages or people with disabilities. There were 26,000 comments in response. What can we expect when can we expect the faa to issue a final ruling on seat dimensions . Unfamiliar with the work that is going on about that and those comments. I think its important to make a distinction between what might be economic regulation and safety regulation. A lot of the comments focused on legroom versus safety, typically with evacuations the problems tend to be piling up. We have had trouble identifying issues. It seems to be piling up on the exit but all of that has been considered and we will certainly take your feedback. Thank you. The seat size does have to do with getting out of the plane. If you are crowded in there and you have somebody next to you that is physically challenged because of girth it makes it difficult to get out. I can imagine people doing that. In japan it was 18 minutes. So if you work on the 90 seconds and work on the seat size and realize safety and comfort can be the same. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Cohen. The chairman will defer. Thank you. I will start out with some perfunctory questions. Would you agree that i will read this right out of the manual here. The facilities which are necessary other than facilities owned by or controlled by the United States shall be operated at all times in a safe and serviceable condition and in standards with maintenance and operation and may not cause or permit any activity which would interfere with its use for airport purposes. Do you agree with that . I am not familiar with it by word, but it sounds right. So we also agreed the faa airport compliance manual section 226 request for interim use of aeronautical property for other uses generally requires the faa to approve the use of airport facilities for nonaromatic circuit purposes and it specifically states that the faa approval shall not be granted if they determine aeronautical demands is likely to exist within the interim use . I believe that is accurate. I will give it to you if you want to see it. These documents from the faa make it abundantly clear that airports restricted in their ability to use their facilities for nonaeronautical purposes when they are doing that are requesting so they must receive faa approval. Restrictions are in place to protect the public and also to protect the investment taxpayers have made for federally funded airports. Yet, i will tell you i have seen a disturbing trend in cities choosing to use your airports such as chicago, ohare, midway, boston logan to house illegal foreign nationals brought here by the administration failure to enforce the immigration laws on the books. That clearly falls, in my mind, into the category of nonaeronautical use. My question to you, has the faa writ approved any request to house illegal foreign nationals. To your explanation, the faa does have a role. I know it does but you are the administrator. Has the faa writ approved any request to house illegal foreign nationals. Would you let me answer that . I just want to use the time efficiently. The faa does approve requests for Community Use. Whatever the category theres a huge number. The criteria is whether it interrupts aeronautical uses. How many requests have been approved for housing illegal foreign nationals. My understanding is there has been one airport making that request. The others that i mentioned. Was the one that made the request one of the ones i mentioned . I believe it was kennedy. Or ohare. It would not be midway or logan but they are housing illegal foreign nationals at the airport. Did the faa make the required determination that no aeronautical demand is likely to exist. I am reading right from your regulation here chapter 22. 6. Did the faa make that determination . The determination was that it did not interfere with aeronautical uses. In that case, i guess the faa will not enforce grant assurances which it says right here literally number one, these assurances shall be complied with in performance of grant agreements for airport development, planning, noise compatibility program, grants for airport sponsor. The federal government is paying for it. They agreed to it and i dont follow to it and the faa will not do anything about it. I will yield some time to a friend but let me ask this question. How does these are unfettered illegal foreign nationals. How does that promote safety or utility or efficiency in these airports . You are out of my expertise. I will yield some time to my friend from texas mr. Nehls. Thank you. Mr. Administrator, i will reference a letter dated february 5, 2024, to the honorable Maria Cantwell and ted cruz. Are you familiar with this letter that you sent . I am not sure what the topic is. I will make sure that you get a copy of this letter so when it comes to me i have a lot of questions. I yield back. Thank you. I recognize the Ranking Member, mr. Larsen. Thank you for coming and helping us out. The first question, you mentioned the hotline to call as well as the whistleblower hotline. Do you have that phone number . Could you remind folks where they can go to make that call . We have a link on our website, faa. Gov. We have also set up a specific hotline for boeing employees which we have communicated so they can reach us directly. Is that on faa. Gov as well . So for employees that can go there for confidential communication . Its run through a confidential process. We have a group for whistleblowers to make sure that they are protected. I know the faa has Treston Decoud inspectors in most facilities. Does that include in spirit as well. Can you give us the range of numbers of people you have deployed to these facilities . We have about two dozen at boeing. Can you give an indication of whether that will be permanent . Will this be shortterm . How long does this last . Is this part of what you need to be doing as part of a permanent solution . We are undertaking a six week audit. That will give us guidance on where we need to go. I think we will make a determination of how many folks we need on the ground. We think that presence will work. Do you have initial thoughts on the impact and influence in the decisionmaking about authorities, how much to pull back from boeing at this time . I think the events of january 5 really created two issues for us. One, whats wrong with the plane and two, whats going wrong at boeing . There have been issues in the past and they dont seem like they are being resolved so we think we need a heightened level of oversight. It was certainly triggered by the max nine. No permanent decision about removing some authority. They will give us a view on what the options are. I have heard boeing mentioned an option for Quality Control and understand how we will make changes to get a different result. I want to move to a little more of the faa bill we passed. I jokingly asked you ahead of time if it was a great bill or greatest bill. We really want to impress upon the senate how important this is. They are trying to get it done but how important it is to get a final bill done. Is there anything, anything you wouldve had ahead of january 5 at least for this particular investigation . I guess i will make two comments. One, we really appreciate the effort on the bill because it creates a huge amount of disruption to not have it. The constant running up against deadlines. Ive been there three months and had a dozen meetings on what happens if there is a shutdown and we dont have authorization. I dont see anything in particular, its possible i will come back in six months and tell you we need something. We dont have that many inspectors on the aircraft certification side of the house. That will be an addition of manpower. We have not scoped that. I did outline some of the issues in the 2023 bill on accessibility. We will just come back to you with those for the record. I will yield back. Thank you, Ranking Member larsen. I will recognize that gentle man from florida. Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about training and air Traffic Controllers. I want to go back to november. You announced that the faa would expand collegiate Training Initiative also known as cti tiredness, specifically, the underutilized capacity and College Programs that meet the faa equivalent levels of safety to help train air Traffic Controllers. We know that is something that we need. And help address the shortage of potentially 3000, maybe more or maybe a little less. My question is, i want you to bring us up to speed. What the faa has done since november to implement new, enhanced cti program . What is being done. What we are trying to do is make sure that these are duplicating the curriculum we teach at the academy. We have put some definition around what that curriculum is and also looking at physical tools like flight simulators, tower simulators and things of that nature to put together a very clear curriculum. My goal is to make sure in the Academic Year 24, 25 we are executing on this so we start to see graduates from the schools come directly to faa to be controllers. The immediacy of the issue is why we are pushing so hard. Of a dozen schools out there, we are hoping to have at least half of them start training students by the fall. Do you see new programs opening up as a result of your efforts . I would like to see that. It has not been the initial focus. We are set into that space but i dont see a reason why other schools cannot have this program as well. Okay. That is the extent of my question. I yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the administrator americans are upset. They have a right to be upset. Last month door plugs failed on the 737 max 9 that costs the door to fly off midflight. Think god nobody was seriously injured. This was a close call, too close. The incident along with reports of near misses a planes colliding as they had to part and arrive at americas airports in the past year is concerning and frankly unacceptable to all of us on this committee. We need to pass comprehensive federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that is currently sitting in the United States senate to give the faa, this administrator, the tools they need to enforce safety roles and prevent catastrophe. In this very committee they crafted a strong, partisan five year faa bill and the house passed it nearly unanimously. We did our job and now the senate needs to do theres as quickly as possible. Mr. Whitaker, as the faa administrator, you are the head of oversight and safety. I want to underscore what the Ranking Member has discussed here today in terms of oversight, particularly on Production Facility inspections, a crucial part of making sure planes are safe. Section 521 of the reauthorization calls for the faa to update the risk model used to inform the frequency of these inspections. But we have problems right now. Can you and a couple sentences explain how the agency determines the frequency of these inspections and what impact it has on production . Thank you, sir. The agency uses a risk model with respect to manufacturers. Its a fairly uniform survey to identify the level of risk. So how many inspections would be driven by that. That model will likely evolve based on the rollout of sms systems which reduce risk and give us better insight into whats happening and in the case of boeing based on the Culture Survey we expect to receive later this month. Thank you. I want to address another issue that was touched upon by a Ranking Member. That is the recent trend of mishandled or damaged wheelchairs by aviation passengers. This recent trend raises serious concerns about the systemic barriers for passengers with disabilities. How is the faa working to prevent these incidents and improve accessibility for air travel for people with disabilities . Thank you, sir. The d. O. T. Has a large role in is related to how customers are treated on aircraft. We work very closely supporting d. O. T. To be sure accessibility as an option and innovations can make sure that is enabled. Its an important issue from us. You will hear a lot more on this committee. We need to up our game, if you will, to improve travel experience. On near misses. The recent trend of runway near misses at some airports, the house passed reauthorization would expand equipment at large and intermediate airports. How would increasing the deployment of this Technology Help their Traffic Controllers and flight crews . These near misses are one of this area where theres an ability to have tailored solutions for each airport. Every airport is different and has its own challenges. A lot of the surface awareness technologies or tools in the tower can really make the difference and create awareness to avoid these types of mishaps. Thank you so much. In my remaining time i want to give you a thank you. I want to thank the faa for the Collaborative Partnership in helping phoenix mesa airport to expand its infrastructure. Gateway airport is the busiest contract air Traffic Control tower in the region and contributes nearly 2 billion to the regional economy. They recently completed a new self concourse due in part to 14. 4 million in the bipartisan infrastructure funds. A ribboncutting will be held in a couple of weeks. The cooperation between the faa and the arizona delegation of congress has been crucial to this growth. Look forward to a continued, strong working partnership to find innovative ways to increase capacity at gateway. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from arkansas. Thank you got chairman graves, administrator whitaker, i want to follow up with my colleague mr. Perrys line of questioning. I know your whole testimony was basically about safety. We all want safe airports. Mr. Perry read to you from the manual about how the nonaeronautical purpose and an airport has to be approved by the faa and you stated that only one airport had approved to be used for the nonaeronautical purpose of housing migrants. Would you like to correct that answer or is that the answer you would like to stick with . To my knowledge, ive only been here three months. Its not an issue ive spent much time on. To my knowledge theres only one application. It is also my understanding that applications are only involved if it is high and security so other properties on airports do not come through the office for approval. It is really just behind security. It is well documented that many airports have been used for this purpose. Do you think these airports are in violation of any federal law or do you think they found a way around that . I assume they are in compliance. I have not heard otherwise. Our role is to make sure proper procedures were followed. This is an issue that i did not think we would have to deal with in congress. I have chaired the committee on Natural Resources and we have a similar issue with National Park service land for the administration has approved use of National Park service land to build migrant shelters. It is crazy to think that would even be an issue but it has happened. In researching the process how that happens, it appears that maybe the secretary had a lot more to do with that than even the doi secretary. Are you aware of any meetings between the secretaries to discuss issues of using airports to house migrants. I am not aware. Are you aware of any meetings between other d. O. T. Or dhs officials to discuss this issue . I have not. Have you been in any meetings regarding this . Just getting brief for this hearing. So we sent a letter, the chairman of the full committee. I think 60 some odd members sent a letter last november asking about this issue. As of today we still have received no response. I know you are new, but why do you think we would be getting delayed on a response of this issue . I do not know but im happy to follow up on that. You followup with secretary buttigieg as well . I will follow up on the status of the letter and let you know. All right. It is amazing that this is something that has been very well documented in the news and there seems to be no response from the administration. I know you are new but you have no real knowledge of what is going on here or the roles associated with it. If you would followup with secretary buttigieg and tell him we are still waiting for his response. Esther chairman, i yield my remaining time. The gentleman from texas real recognized. Mr. Chairman, did you look at the letter that i referenced that was dated march 5 sent to cantwell and ted cruz . Yes i have. Did you write that letter . Did i write the letter . It was drafted for me. Who drafted it for you . I dont know. The issue was developed internally to respond to requests for Technical Assistance on various issues. Is this the official position of the faa to oppose raising the mandatory retirement age without a study beforehand . The official position is that we do not have a position on retirement age but if it changes we would like to have data to support it. Silver everybody listening, the faa administrator does not have an official position on whether congress we passed it in the house, should raise the mandatory retirement age okay. Ill yield. Gentleman yields back. My friend from kansas, miss davids recognized for questions. Thank you. Thank you to chairman graves and to Ranking Member cohen for this hearing today and thank you also to chairman sam graves and Ranking Member lar zone for their leadership on passing a common sense bipartisan reauthorization of the federal Aviation Administration in the house last year. Mr. Whittaker, welcome to the aviation subcommittee and thank you for taking the time to be here. I do believe your experience and leadership will be invaluable with the faa. I would like you to address an issue thats affecting the National Air Space system which is aging infrastructure anfunctional on sew lessens. The failure of the system in january 2023 highlights the risk to the flying public when aging safety critical aviation infrastructure isnt replaced in a timely way and sadly, the faa now operates and maintains one of the oldest collections of safety critical aviation infrastructure in the world. One such system is such system that is desperately is need of replacement is ils or instrument landing systems. Theres a map up there and i have one here. This ils map demonstrates how many 1970s era mark 1 f systems are in operation in the nass. The faa has more than 1200 systems located at hundreds of airports across the country. The ils is the only system approved by faa to support all weather landings al the nation isobitsiest airports and as such the systems are required to remain in operation for the foreseeable future. However, the vast majority of these safety Critical Systems were placed into service in the 1970s and 80s and now functionally obsolete. In kansas alone 17 of the 21 systems which is 81 are functionally obsolete. This body passed the bipartisan infrastructure law more than two years ago with a set aside of 5 billion to replace the aging systems. But the faa told Industry Leaders and members of this committee that modernization of the systems wasnt an eligible expense under the program. Then aviation chairman larson and i engaged on the floor in december 9th of 201 shown here expressing congressional intent this was in fact an eligible expension. This was shared with u. S. D. O. T. Again on august 17th. 2022 when mr. Larson and i noticed that there was no money directed in the fiscal year 2023 faa spend plan for remacement of the systems. We asked for a time lynn and budget detailing specific allocation of iij resources to landing and navigational aids equipment for fiscal years 2022 through 26. The response we received contained none of the information that we asked for. In followup conversations, with faa, we have yet to receive a satisfactory response as to why the acquisition and modernization of the systems has lagged. And in fact, several taxpayer funded interrupt landing systems, theres 14 of them, are sitting in a cave in independent, missouri. Simply waiting to be installed. At the faas current pace which is about four to five systems a year it would take more than 100 years to replace the systems. To be in operationty spite being over 100 years old. I cant imagine thats actually the expectation. And just so were clear, what system failure looks like, the most likely impact on these airports is on capacity on throughput and delays. When an ils is out runways cant be used for all weather operations. But theres also this inherent safety risk should a system fail in the middle of landing operations. So mr. Whittaker, whats the faas schedule for deploying these devices systemwide and as you might be aware, the professional aviation Safety Specialists have proposed a Pilot Program for deploying these systems within 18 months and im curious if to your knowledge is the faa considering that proposal . Thank you for the question. You have hit on a very interesting issue at the faa which is how we fund facilities, equipment and particularly were in a situation now where we have a lot of redundant systems in the in the nass and facilities. We have facilities that need to be replaced as well. With respect to this particular issue, my understanding is that that infrastructure funding is available for deployment of those ils systems. Specifically the ones that you mentioned that are that are in storage. So my understanding is that that will be deployed and those fund will be used to begin deploying those systems. Do you have do you have timeline . I can certainly respond to your office with some specifics on the timelines. Okay. I i would very much like a specific response given the length of time that this has been going on. The bipartisan infrastructure bill gave us a five year timeline and were over two years in. Okay. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, mrs. Davids. Recognize the gentleman from minnesota. Thank you very much. Mr. Chair. And administrator whittaker. Thanks for being with us and congratulations. Thank you. Mr. Whittaker, how many positions are there at the faa . How many positions . Well, we have 45,000 employees. 45,000 and what percentage of those positions are filled . I dont have an exact position number for you. Is the covid emergency over . I believe so. Yes. May 11th. President biden declared the emergency over. I understand you use a hybrid telework model. Is that correct . We it depends on the function. So obviously our controllers are all on the job. But other employees are still in a hybrid situation. How many days a week or how many days a week do the employees have to show up in a two week work period . The policy again it depend on the employee, but the job description, but the baseline is four days. Yeah. So four days your employees have to in a two week period show up four days. What if their air Traffic Controllers only showed up four days and their work would it affect commercial general aviation. As i mentioned they show up every day for their jobs. I understand that, what if the controllers only showed up four days out of the two week work period. They cant control traffic from home. If they only showed up. Would it be a problem for airports in general aviation and commercial aviation aour country, yes or in . Of course. How do you track employee accessibility and productivity in this hybrid model. Its its up to individual managers to manage their work force. To meet the needs of their mission. I can just tell you from what im hearing from stakeholders is that accessibility to faa staff is limited. And it seems evident that productivity is waning as several highprofile rule making are still ongoing. And you know this. The rule for regular beyond visual line of sight operation of Unmanned Aircraft systems. That final report was concluded in march of 2022. And now its not expected until august of 2024. You know, i know Workplace Flexibility is an important recruiting tool in our new world. However, as an agency with a Safety Mission first, do you find that a two day inperson workweek rather low . Again, it depends on the job position. So many of our employees, not only controllers, but inspectors, need to be in place. But others, it may work for working remotely so think it depends on the position. Administrator whitaker, i believe the faa should hold itself to a higher standard and the faas telework schedule requires again they are only in person two days correction, four days out of the two week work period. And i just like to point out again our controllers are working a lot of hours. Lot of pressure on them. To keep our flying public safe. And speaking of controllers, the National Aerospace air space system rather Safety Review Team concluded that under the faas most recent controller workplace plan submitted to congress, when retirements and other attrition is accounted for, the hiring plan produces a negligible improvement over todays understaffed levels resulting in net increase of fewer than 200 aircraft controllers by 2032. This is extremely concerning for safety and efficiency of the Aviation System. Can you reassure the committee that the faa will prioritize this issue, conduct maximum hiring of new controllers and continue to request adequate resources from congress to address the problem . I can. Yes, sir. And i understand that the faa has committed to maximum control and hiring for only fiscal year 24 and 25 and 26. With the faa commit to a longer term maximum hiring posture since it will take longer than three years for max hiring to return to healthy controller staffing levels. What weve done is there are competing staffing models at play. We commissioned the Transportation Research board to review the models and within three years well have a new model in place and i will set the goals. Thank you. Last question. Will you prioritize and support general aviation like you do commercial . And will you support rural airport informationment and infrastructure . Absolutely. Thank you. And again congratulations. Thanks. Thank you. Recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. Garcia. Thank you chairman and welcome administrator whitaker, as you know, boeing recently withdrew its request for the max 7 to receive a safety exemption which would have allowed the aircraft to be certified with a known defects if granted. As you know boeings fleet of max aircraft have an issue that could cause the n acel. The pod surrounding the engine, to break and fall off in certain conditions. This could have potentially catastrophic consequences. Boeing is now working on a long term fix that will require retrofitting the entire max fleet. How did the faa in your understanding fail to detect such a defect during the certification of the max 8 and max 9 aircraft . So my understanding on that particular issue is that that that potential defect was discovered in during using computer modeling, some years after the original certification of the aircraft. And modeling that was required by the axa legislation actually but thats my understanding of how that was discovered. While i appreciate the faas attention to this topic, boeing has demonstrated time and time again it will cut corners on safety in order to maximize profits. My second question, administrator, is this. In response to the recent Alaska Airlines accident, the faa has launched an investigation into boeings compliance with manufacturing requirements. Has the faa comprehensively engaged with employee groups those involved in the production and have they and those who have filed whistleblower reports regarding reduction of Quality Assurance procedures in the manufacturing system, and if so, how is the faa handling these reports . So on the engagement aspect, we now have 20 inspectors on the ground in boeing. Engaging with the employees and every phase of the manufacturingprocess to allow us to have direct conversations with the employees about what pressures they might be feeling or what instructions theyre getting and what incentives theyre dealing with. On the whistleblower, we we dedicated a portal for proking employees but we also have a normal portal for whistleblowers. And we have a pretty regimented process on how we deal with those reports to make sure the identity is protected and that the reports are taken seriously. Should i take that to mean that there is currently engagement with those employees . Yes, sir. Thank you. Of course, i look forward to working with the faa to hold our Aviation Community to a higher standard of safety. It is equally crucial for the operation of our Aviation Industry and airport workers and our paid paid livable wages. Airport workers are largely latino, black and immigrant work force and theyve been overlooked and underpaid for the vital role that they play in keeping our airports running. My bill the good jobs for good airports act would change that. Administrator, are you committed to doing what you can to ensure that the airports that the faa oversees are delivering fair wages and benefits to all employees . Im very committed to making sure they have a very safe working environment. We are focused on safety at airports particularly on the ramps. So weve taken some initiatives around that to make sure that those employees are in a safe environment. Thank you. And i yield back mr. Chairman. Thank you sir. Thank you mr. Garcia. Recognize the gentleman from new jersey. Thank you chairman. Welcome mr. Whitaker. You know you have a tiger by the tail. You know, i was going to speak on Something Else and i am in a moment. But using airports for housing undocumented. Thats a big deal. Its a big deal to the communities these airports are in. Its a big deal fiscally. Its a big deal for safety. And i know you are new. So i want to be fair. But we need you to drill down and tell us more whats going on, please check thoroughly on this issue. I think its a totally inappropriate use, safety is our number one issue. It was never meant for housing any of these airports, there was a plan and this is fact. It was leaked out by whistleblower. Ten different airports this they were going to house illegals in. Of course we got aheld of it and Atlantic City International Airport and my district they were talking about housing up to60,000 illegals in a community of 30,000, 40,000 people. Thats wrong. Need some commitments from you to thoroughly drill down on this issue. To know how many airports are involved. A complete list of airports that are involved. A policy coming from the faa, we need a policy from the faa dealing with these requests and ensuring that the faa is part of the process in determining if, where and when this is going to be done. And we need a complete list of requests and from whom it came. I brought this up to secretary buttigieg when he was here. He was not aware of it. Of course we have the information and i need you to do that and i would appreciate if you get that information back to me and the entire committee. Could you commit to getting us that information . I can commit to making sure that were complying with the law around any approvals i appreciate that by we dont own the airports. The big deals you are very important part of what happens at the airport. You should be included. You should be part of it. The people quite frankly of our districts of our country, should be part of it as well. So i ask you to please think about that and i would ask you to please commit to doing that. Its not a big request. Its a real obvious thing. And im looking fore ward toe that report. You know, last month the fuselage of a domestic boeing 737 max exploded open at 16,000 feet and i know you are real aware of it. There are 180 people on board and we are unbelievably blessed that nobody died and there wasnt injuries and it wasnt much worse than the result we had. This accident in my opinion, in my opinion, is the result of decades long process of globalization. And the early 2000s boeing aggressively outsourced its business model. The strategy peaked in 2005 with the sale of the wichita based spirit aerosystems. I know you are aware of that. Spirit aerorow is now a quote Global Corporation and its been identified by the faa as responsible, you all identified it. As responsible for the faulty components behind the Alaska Airlines incident. This is one example of boeings outsourcing led to their decline. And boeing has hidden its decline in my opinion and many by appealing to diversity. Equity. And inclusion. And for its investors, because its a cool thing to be and the investors that are interested in that were more likely to invest. And their stock no doubt has gone up 400 since their product has gone down. But their stock has gone up. Which is really interesting. You know, you should be worried about safety when you are selling private equity firms. But they were not this is aonetwo punch of globalization and social engineering and it doesnt belonging, job number one is safety. Job number one is safety for every man, woman and child that go in the airports. And its a company that is struggling to reliably produce safe aircraft. Mr. Whitaker, are you concerned by the trajectory of boeing as an American Institution . An American Institution. Are you concerned . My concern is that boeing makes safe aircraft. So im less concerned about externalities and more concerned about the quality of the aircraft coming off the line. I would maintain its part and parcel. They have a job to worry about safety and efficiency and when you are worried about all other issues and not the Green Economy and everything else, you should you know, that should be your job number one and i hope you have plan the put them back on track. I sent you a letter in december about the Faa Technical Center and i would like to submit this record for the chairman, for the record. The needs include National Air Space systems and technology and transfer programs and my time has run out and i wish i had half hour with you. I appreciate you being there. Hope that you would take my request seriously because the American Public tarrant counties it seriously. And i thank you and wish you good luck. Gentleman, time has expired and recognize the general lady from alaska for five minutes. Good morning administrator whitaker. General aviation accident rates in alaska continue to outpace the rest of the country. Can you update faas implementation of the 2023 alaska tiger team include the eight observing systems installation scheduled to have been completed in september of 2023 . Thank you maam. So i i fully supportive of the unique nature of alaska and the role of general aviation in that had a chance to visit when i was deputy and got to tour quite a bit of some of the remote facilities and i think the program has really been a very Strong Program and we support that. And well continue to support that. On the awas i know i have briefed on this ahead of the hearing and i understand that seven of the eight have been deployed. The eighth is inaccessible due to some flooding or other climate conditions. So we will make sure that that continues as well. Okay. Excellent. And as you say, alaska is unique and i think 82 of our communities are not accessible by any other way except airplane. The faa passed or the house passed the faa reauthorization bill and it included section 510. The Don Young Aviation Safety Initiative which calls on aviation stakeholders to Work Together to reduce the rate of fatal accidents by 90 by 2033. In alaska, hawaii, puerto rico, and other american territories. And this provision includes a number of initiatives designed to further the objective and im wondering what you see as steps that are necessary to achieve this kind of reduction . Well, i think its laudable that we have such an aggressive goal and that is how we brought the commercial aviation accident rate down to its current level. And getting the stakeholder groups working together, i think with ga, there are a lot of technologies that can be deployed to create better Situational Awareness in the cockpit. And more tools, particularly around weather and unpredictable weather. But also redundancies around landing systems and the like. So i think this is an area where technology and Quick Deployment of technology can really be a benefit. So its i think its really positive that all these stakeholders are working together toward that. Thank you so much. I yield back my time mr. Chairman. Regrettably yield to mr. Man. Thank you and thank you for being here today. Administrator whitaker. I represent the big state of kansas, a strong relationship between the kansas economy and aviation. There are 91,000 jobs attributed to the Aviation Industry in my state including 42,000 from the Aerospace Manufacturing segment. It ranks second in Economic Impact in kansas only to agriculture. For our Aviation Industry to thrive, the faa needs a road nap of updated congressional priorities to adopt long overdue policy changes and regulatory requirements. Delays in rule making and insufficiencies in the work force are bottlenecking the industry. Its imperative that Congress Passes the reauthorization bill so the faa is work force and Aviation Industry are able to address the backlog of concerns that my colleagues and i have all been raising for months. So that america can return to its Gold Standard status in aviation. A few questions mr. Whitaker. Weve heard a lot about the faas rule making process. And the importance of it for innovation and safety and international leadership. What will you do to make this process more timely, transparent and accountable under your tenure. Thank you sir. Think transparency in general i think needs to be improved and efficiency needs to be improved delivering services. Registrations, for example. Certification process. So we are working on those issues. Rule making is a little different. Because its driven by the administrative procedures act. We are required to have certain time periods for comment and certain process and procedures. I think the best we can to is make sure we get that transparency and know where we are in the process. And try to keep the process moving rule making can have a dozen different steps in it and just make sure that were continuing to keep sunlight on that and keep things moving as quickly as we can within the confines of that law. Then specifically address Unmanned Aerial Systems . In other words how the is faa adapting its framework to accommodate the rapid evolution of Unmanned Aerial Systems and advanced air Mobility Technologies . I think we have to acknowledge that this is here to stay. Its a growing part of the Aviation Industry. Tremendous potential for kansas and the rest of the country and how do we make sure faa is appropriately and quickly reviewing the new technologies with safety front and center but also not having unnecessary delays as well. It is it is one of our big challenges and right now, i think its mostly been dealt with in a one off manner. So i think recently, weve gotten much better on the small uas and through the exemption process so weve been able to satisfy a lot of the loss operations and such. Advanced air mobility currently would have to operate under existing rules which you know, is doable but not scalable if you will. So i think what we need to do is work as an industry with all stakeholders to develop that road map that integrates all the technologies and tries to keep up with their pace of development. So i think we dont want to be in the way but we need to make sure theyre being doe ployed safely and thats our top priority. I agree. As an aside i hear from multiple manufacturers in kansas of all sizes that just talk about how long it takes to for the faa to respond to new ideas on how do we do things better and how do we innovate and make sure that the u. S. Continues to that we are the world leader in the aviation space . A big part of that of course is manufacturing and a big part of that is having an faa thats adaptable and understands technology and where the industry is heading and how do we partner together to promote safety. So. Last question. In your testimony, youout lined several initiatives on increasing the air Traffic Controller work force. What strategies are you implementing to bolster other fields in the aviation force such as aircraft mechanics and pilots and other segments of the industry . Thats thats a great question. And im remiss for not mentioning that were actually hiring all these sectors. The controllers are sort of the most immediate safety need for us. But were hiring all sectors and were competing with all those other industries you just mentioned in a market that is a pretty good market if you are an employee. So so i often said im the chief recruiting officer for the agency so were doing direct outreach to schools and trying to cast as broad a net as we can to interest people into coming into the faa. And maybe they come in for 30 years or maybe just three years. So we want to make it easier for folks to come through and have an experience there and maybe go do Something Else afterwards. So it is a priority and its not an easy one to get after. Great. Thank you mr. Chairman, with that i yield back. Thank you. Gentleman from nevada, miss titus recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Nice to see you mr. Whitaker and congratulations on having this position. Thank you. Its a be a tough job and a tough place but i know you are up to it and we appreciate it very much. Thank you. You know, aviation is so important to my district. Las vegas. Weve got very crowded air space with the military and with the drones and with the commercial flights. With the general aviation. So this is really critical. And i want to thank you all for your recent investments from the bipartisan infrastructure law. And you brought 49 million for the infrastructure Grant Funding for all the airports in my district. And that thats really helpful and really appreciated. For improving runway safety and taxi upgrades. But id like to go back to the issue of air Traffic Controllers. We know that air travel is increasing and yet the number of air Traffic Controllers is not. I think you hired 30 last year. And including trainees. And theyre often forced to work overtime six days a week and that leads to stress and burnout and would you just say again for the record how you are trying to address that issue . You have identified all the problems that i also identified coming in. And its i think one of our most pressing needs and i would add to that it takes years to make an air Traffic Controllers. Its a long journey. Its not an easy job, its very rewarding but we need to hire as many as we possibly can. So we are ensuring that our own processes delivering as much as it can through the academy and oklahoma city. But were we also want to work with universities and the private sector to make sure we can pull as many from that source as well. So weve become more flexible with military hires. You just be twice a year. If you didnt happen to leave the military agent the right time. You had to wait six months. We have a constant hiring of military controllers. Which will increase the number of folks who can go directly into the towers or centers. And were working i think one of our most promising outlets will be these Aeronautical College and universities where the students can get the same curriculum as the academy and pass the exam and go directly into tower or radar facility. That will allow us to increase the pipeline but in the short term its going to be hard toe move that needle very much at least till you get about two years out. I think theres a place in some of the Community Colleges for developing programs like this. I think that that would that can certainly be eligible. If theyre able to teach that curriculum and have the training tools. Often requires being around a lot of retired controllers. They have a relatively early retirement rage and a lot of them become instructors afterward. Id like to see the Program Expand as we go forward. Me too. Let us know if we can be helpful. Also were seeing more and more in different modes of transportation that companies are acting in ways that tend to prioritize profits over safety and you mentioned in your testimony that agency found inspections of the ground at 737 9 max aircraft showed boeings quality system issues were and i quote, unacceptable and required further scrutiny. Do you have confidence in your suppliers that they can kind of maintain this Quality Control . Its not a fox guarding the hen house kind of situation . Think were going to look at this process really top to bottom to see where the incentives are. Where the failures are in the system. And were going to demand that that quality come up to the appropriate schedule. We we certify aircraft to be build to very specific specifications and they have to be build to the specifications. Regardless of their other motives, theyre not going to be able to build more airplanes until they meet those standards. Okay. You dont see a problem with conflict of interest with self inspections . We are looking at that. Specifically. Weve asked miter our Research Firm to give us options on delegation. And where we might bring in a third party, for example, in Quality Control. Or Quality Assurance. To make sure you have a neutral set of eyes on some of those issues. So thats something were looking at. Thank you. And then just in a second throw out there about the framework for beyond line of sight now its based on a waiver system. We want to put the rules in place. Are you moving forward with that . Were going to were going to move as quickly as we can on that one. Okay. Yes. Lot of people want you to move more quickly. Ive been getting that message, thank you. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you. Gentleman from utah, mr. Owens is recognized. Thank you mr. Chair. On behalf of the westerners, utah is a remarkable place of conversions. And connections. Fastest growing state in the union right now. We have the olympics possibly and its going to be very important we have that conduit coming from places a hub like utah. And that being said, the faa has identified multiple time blocks where the dc airport is currently underutilized. Do you believe more flights can be added safely and efficiently to that process . So so our focus on with respect to dca is whether its safe. So were not involved in the decision around where the flights can go from dca. So our focus is entirely on the safety aspect. It is an airport that is very close to capacity. There are some hours when theres some room for new capacity. But it is as you know, a pretty full operation and tends to operate at around 60 operations a minute. And i mean an hour. Sorry. So its basically one a minute. So you cant really squeeze much more than that in there. So that tends to be where our focus is. According to the reports we got from the faa, sit safe. There are blocks in which it can be done safely according to the faa. We will always make sure it operates safely. Outside the perimeter are tens of millions of americans who deserve better pricing and better value and more convenient access to dc representatives. I encourage the support and efforts to provide a consumer free market to our nations capital. I would really appreciate that. And my hometown airport, Salt Lake City is currently phase two of the development. Can you explain the impact of the delayed faa reauthorization to salt lake City International and airports like that are going through modernization . Yes, i think you are hitting on a very important point. These projects have a certain momentum and they need to be funded and they need to operate under current authorization. So i think its vital that both of those pieces happen. Okay. Im going to yield my remaining time to my good friend from texas. Thank you. And i apologize mr. Administrator, these wonderful gentlemen give me time when they dont have anything else to say and i have so much to talk about with you. Just for the record here, i asked you did you write this letter and you stated you didnt but you had somebody ask you to write this letter. And i ask you who asked you to write this letter dated february 5th . So i think the discussion probably would have been with our Government Affairs team. That focuses on providing Technical Assistance on legislation. But you couldnt specifically somebody come up to you and said hey mr. Administrator, im drafting this letter, i want you to approve this letter . So we can send out to senators cantwell and cruz . No, its dish it come it comes through a correspondence. We put out a lot of correspondence. It was written by in your opinion some Government Affairs team within the faa. Presumably but i dont know precisely but normally how would be developed. Fair enough. Fair enough. You did state that i bring the letter up and you stated its not the official position of the faa to oppose raising the retirement age to 67. But you have some concerns and in the letter, it talks about we always prioritize a robust process to identify risk and ensure mitigations to maintain safety. But we do not test in a live environment. We do not test. In a live environment. Could you tell us what that means. What the hell is a live environment . Explain that to me. I believe what that means is we dont change the rule to see how it plays out and usually like to do the research before we change the rule. Okay. Would you consider are you familiar with basic med . Basic med, the study. The bake med safety study. I am. Yes. All right, the faa authorized it. They let it run and they looked at it after three years like 2017, 2018, 2019. And they reported back to congress. Its right here. I have it here. And faa report submitted to congress as required on march 10th reviewed three years of general aviation data and concluded that the basic med program is safe. Isnt that a live study . I mean, there were flying around. These general aviators are flying around and looking at whether a third class medical versus a basic med. And they found out that basic med works. That is a live study. Would you agree . Yeah. That was based on legislate i mandate. Yeah, but i know its a legislative mandate. We dont resue thats a live study though. Theyre flying around and theyre reporting back three years of data and theyre saying hey, theres no issues with basic med. Thats a live study. Right. Okay. Just want to get that because it says we do not test in a live environment. Thats not true. I yield back. Thank you mr. Nells. Recognize for questions. Thank you mr. Chair. Welcome administrator whitaker. Prior to Alaska Airlines 1282 accident, did the faa find any evidence of persistent Quality Control lapses in any of boeings production lines. To answer that question a lot of that is before my tenure but i think the production problems with the 787 beginning in 2019 through recently, are pretty wellknown. And even just in december we had an airworthiness directive around a loose bolt on a rudder system. I think there were some recent reports of production issues already with boeing. Not to hammer on that, but you did mention some bolt issues recently. Has the faa become aware of any other lapses since the start of the investigation . So the investigation is ongoing. And we are supporting ntsb in their investigation of course of the incident itself so theres no there are no findings really to discuss at this point. The audit investigation is going on and the only thing i can say about that. It hasnt shown any findings that have let us to immediate action. So were just going to take the data we get from that and analyze that to decide how to move forward. Thank you. Mr. Whitaker, one of the faas most successful government industry partnerships is the Contract Tower Program. 262 smaller airports participate in this critically important air Traffic Safety program. Including 21 in california. One of which is in my district. The San Luis Obispo county airport. This critical air Traffic Safety program is important to maintaining and develop Regional Service and supports dod Flight Training operations and military readiness as a pilot flight schools all across the country. It is also important to note that contract towers account for approximately onethird of all tower operations in the nation. And about 70 of contract controllers are veterans. Mr. Administrator, what assurances can you give me and my colleagues that contract towers will remain a priority for you . Well, i can assure you we certainly back and forth the program. And given the support the program. And given the hiring challenges were having with air Traffic Controllers, no incentive to try to tinker with the system as its working. And in fact, we we also do hiring from contract towers as well so its a source for our own controllers. So were fully supportive of the program and want to make sure its working particularly in smaller airports. Great. Also staffing shortages continue to be a challenge throughout the industry which you just now touched on. Including contract towers. What measures can the faa and the industry undertake collaboratively to address staffing challenges at these towers . I think i think were doing all that we can do from our that weve been able to think of, for our own hiring purposes. But i think you know, its become a very competitive market. There are a lot of new entrants in different aspects of aerospace. I think we have to really compete for those employees and give them a good working environment. Thank you. I appreciate your leadership and i appreciate you recently becoming the administrator and i think you have your hands full with the lot of challenges. But i think you are the right person for the job. And i wanted to just recognize you for all you that you bring to the table to is this very important position. And all the problem solving that you are going to help us achievement so thank you very much. Thank you sir. Mr. Chair i yield back. Thank you. Recognize the gentle lady from oregon. Thank you chairman. Nice to meet you sir. Nice to meet you. Thanks. I represent oregons fifth Congressional District and im grateful to be on this committee to ask these questions. So ill get it started. Long delays and cancellations have become too common in airports. In large part due to shortage of pilots. It would be ridiculous for us to look at the doesnt state of things and say everything is fine. Lets just keep the status quo. Last week through my work on education and work force committee, the flight Education Access act was included in major student loan reform package. This is a huge step in resolving that shortage. The common sense proposal closes the pilot work force gap by letting prospective pilots access the same loan opportunities available to students at traditional four year schools. It increases the total maximum amount of the federal direct and subsidized stafford loans and eligible depent dent may borrow to 11,000 and increases the maximum amount and increases the maximum amount of federal direct standards loans to total of 6 thousand dollars. If prospective pilots could access the these types of Student Loans and use them when completing the regulated training. Would that help improvement the pilot shooterrage. I think that would be a very useful initiative. Its very expensive to become an airline pilot. Which means 1500 hours so you can become a private pilot with as few as 40 hours. So getting from 40 to 1500 is a hugely expensive endeavor. So its like any other profession. Doctor, lawyer, plumber, you know, it costs money to get there. And you know you would agree its a positive outcome. This would be positive initiative. Absolutely. So moving on, what should be the most common part of air travel safety . Of course, you have heard plenty about the boeing alaska accident today. And amongst others. But its not lost on me is that it happened in oregon my home state. Oregonians choose Alaska Airlines as their preferred airline and i fly on them every single week. Back and forth. Boeing jets rightfully have cause for concern and many questions. Can you speak to the level of confidence once again today, in the faa approved inspection steps for the 737 9 max door plug . Yes, i think that that was a very thorough inspection process. And the the mechanical fix to that defect we have a high level of confidence that takes care of the problem. And so youd fly on this 737 max 9. Yes i would. Okay. The congressman kind of talked on the last question on the Contract Tower Program and i have one of those in my district in bend. I appreciate you answering that you are in full support of continuing that. I will yield my time then to my colleague mr. Nells the remaining time. Thank you very much. Mr. Administrator, obviously this letter that you did not write but you had the Government Affairs team write i believe and again listen, you are a busy man. I dont think maybe you proofread this thing very clearly. I mean, theres some issues here. As it relates to the but we do not test in a live environment. I believe that basic med safety study is a prime example and i have a few more i believe. That its interesting. Alpa is taking dues from pilots in canada over the age of 65. Alpa is taking dues from pilots over the age of 65 and we know it didnt they want to squash us and they dont want the retirement age raised. West jet is flying represented pilots over the age of 65 right now. Thats your live study. Mr. Administrator. Lets talk about the part 135 operators. We allow the pilots to flyover the age of 65 under part 135. Is that not a live environment and could you explain to everybody what a part 135 is versus a 121. Typically under 30 passengers. Sure. Jets would be an example . Thats correct. All right. Do part 121 and 135 share the same air space . They do. They do. So they taxi with part 121. Ie the big airliners folks. Delta, united everything and you can get this net jet taylor swift flying into the super bowl . Her supersonic jet. They could be in the same air space taxiing on the same runway. Why do part 135. That flies around the millionaires and the billionaires across the country why can that i fly to the age 67 but united and delta, that gentleman, we fire them at 65 . How does that make any sense . Congress passed a law limiting them to 65. Congress passed a law limiting them to 65. Right. How do you feel about that . Do you think thats just and its right . I think its what congress did so we dont second Guess Congress but i think our point was if you are going to change it wed like to have some data around it. Thats perfect. I yield back. Thank you sheriff. For the record im not sure that taylor swift flies supersonic. Just want to make note. The gentleman from massachusetts recognized. Thank you chairman and i want to second what the chairman said. This committee did good bipartisan work and needs to happen in the senate now. Whether whitaker you were getting questions earlier from the republican colleagues about migrant housing at the airports. By statute, faa has jurisdiction over airside. Not land side operations at airports. Correct . Thats correct sir. And there was one instance of the airside of the airport asking to house migrants, correct . Thats my understanding. And there has been no documentation of airside safety being impeded at that one airport jfk. Correct . That is thats the standard. Yes. Is a faa an aeronautical Safety Organization or Immigration Agency. Our commission is safety,sir. Hard working men and women of Border Patrol is actually this governments Immigration Agency endorsed the senates bipartisan deal on border security. A tough and fair spree i to compromise you authorized a max airplane to fly again after the ask Alaska Airlines accident. It was grounded because of concerns about Quality Manufacturing for the plug door. The focus of that was to inspect those aircraft to come up with the repair that would ensure that the standard of safety built into the aircraft. Once that inspection and repair scenario was agreed upon, the aircraft was agreed to return to surface. In 2020, you took back to getting from boeing. Was that oversight sufficient given the problems regarding the max nine . I was not there at the time. It is hard to call that oversight sufficient. What additional steps need to be taken the logan International Airport. Reducing the risk of runway incursions. Can you speak to how investments like that will improve passenger safety and any other work they are doing or near misses. Issues that happen in the airport environment and on runways, each airport is unique. It has its own geometry and certain geometries create natural situations that can cause confusion. We call them hotspots. Trying to identify those hotspots and correct them through signage, lighting or sometimes moving taxiways is highly effective in keeping them safe. The good news is they are a really straight solution. I want to join my colleagues and saying how happy we are to have you in this position. Looking forward to seeing the work that you can do for maintaining and improving americas Gold Standard reputation for airline safety. I yield back, mr. Chair. Thank you. I recognize the vice chair of the subcommittee. The gentleman from indiana. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here today. A robust open and transparent bipartisan process the house passed the reauthorization last july and an overwhelming 35169 vote. It appears we are finally going to see some Welcome Movement from our colleagues in the senate later on this week. Hopefully it means certainty and stability to your agency. To the flying public with an faa reauthorization centered around our Gold Standard of safety and continued american aviation leadership. That leadership that i would like to speak about in this particular case or the lack thereof. As we host hearings in the lead up to our reauthorization bill we heard from our witnesses especially in the drone delivery industry who said they were expanding in markets like australia. Instead of the United States due to a lack of regulatory certainty. I have been encouraged to see the faa issuing a number of waivers. Enabling the onsite operations for drone delivery companies. The waivers represent another step in a long journey that must strike that fine balance between safety and forward momentum. But it is a journey that in my estimation has been moving far too slow. Mr. Whitaker, earlier you told my colleague that the notice of proposed rulemaking would be published this year. Last september, and faa official had pegged that timeline as august of 2024. Is that timeline slipping or as august still the goal . I can give you a specific answer. I was covering for my lack of memory on a specific date. I would like an exact answer, if you dont mind. Furthermore, the timeline from august for the administrator telling back in september is a timeline from august is slipping. I would like to have you circle back and articulate why that timeline is slipping. My other question is, once that notice is published, publishing a final rule for the proposed rulemaking. Moving as quickly as possible it was a review process, as you know. We will give is as much transparency as possible and try to keep it moving. It is an important rule and we want to get it out. Due to so many delays and timelines we have companies reevaluating the innovation, r d in the United States. Thank you to the commitments for moving forward he had i would like to yield the balance of my time t and with that mr. Chairman id like to yield the balance of my time to my colleague, mr. Nells. Thank you sir. So weve talked about this letter and we talked about the the fact that i dont believe it was proofread sir. I really dont. You seem to be a great guy. I think you have a bright future. But this letter is full of inaccuracies and has flaws and says we dont test in a live environment but i dont think you believe that. Thats not what you believe and i think we can point that out. We the last sentence of the letter it says quote it is critical to provide the agency an opportunity to conduct research and determine mitigations. You talk about conducting research. Everybody thats listening, watching, japan, new zealand, australia, our friends to the north, canada. All have pilots above the age of 67. Theyve had no safety issues. Zero. No safety issues. The head of the faa in new zealand and i went up to iku and i flew up to canada. Went to the meeting. The faa administrator of new zealand says they have flying pilots at the age of 75 with no issues. Thats your live study sir. Call them and ask them. I even got, believe it or not, john prater, the former president of Airline Pilots association that says in the past, referenced 60 to 65, in the past, commercial Airline Pilots who did not want to stop working at age 60 took jobs with International Airlines or charter operators for with the retirement age was higher. This should be studied quote you can look globally and look at canada and look at pilots flying in Corporate Aviation and on demand Services Like net jets. He says refer to the large private aviation. If gao could expand and ask the airline themselves, thats the avenue they could investigate if they choose to expand their look. End quote. I yield. Thank you, sir. Recognize recognize gentleman from texas, mr. Owens. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for holding this hearing. Its incredibly important topic at the important time and thank you mr. Administrator for being herement i know were united in wanting to restore confidence in our air travel. When we have some americans i travel quite a bit as we all do, and im sitting next the folks who said they were filtering out in the travel plans the planes they think are unsafe. When we have that we know we have to respond. So we have to respond together. Here on our responsibility is to help you to ensure that we are remaining the Gold Standard and you certainly have my commitment on that. And i wanted to just ask you about in reference to boeings internal oversight, you say that its time to reexamine the delegation of authority and assess any associated safety risks. Discuss how the faa intends to change oversight at the manufacturing sites to reach this goal. So what were doing were doing a number of things. Were doing an audit of the manufacturing process. We are looking into what is delegated and what could be overseen by a third party. And we have inspectors on the ground talking to employees to understand sort of the ground truth if you will of whats happening. What the pressures are. And based on that outcome, we will look at putting together a program to continue to add direct oversight to what otherwise was sort of an auditing approach. So a much more handon approach Going Forward. That will be that will be really designed after this six week audit period is finished and we have a better understanding of whats going on in the factory. To you need any further authorizations or support from the congress in order to do that . Is there anything in the faa reauthorization that would assist in that . Well, i do appreciate you saying that the willingness to Work Together. I think with a problem like this, we all need to be growing in the same direction. Congress, boeing, the airlines, the faa. I think we all want the same outcome which is safe airplanes. So we we will certainly come back with you on that. I think we do anticipate needing to hire more inspectors. The oversight before was a different skillset and we need folks who are trained to be on the ground and much more hands on. So we do anticipate some hiring i think we have the authorizing authority to do that. We may need to find the money to do it but i think that will be a top priority and well either come come back for that or well make it work one way or the other. Because theres an inherent tension here between the new competition and the need to rush products to market. I remember back when we dealt with the max initially, few years back, some of the internal discussions about needing to compete when you are also your own regulator own internal reviews. So, it seems to me that we have to have more on our side in terms of independent investigators and i recognize the cost associated with that but i think for the American Public, it is a cost that is worth us baring in terms of making sure we dont have another incident like what we had. So, in order to have a truly safe system, it seems that we cant rely on the manufacturers themselves to be their own watchdog. Is that something you agree with . I certainly agree that the Current System is not working because it is not delivering safe aircraft, and i think we also have to look at the culture to your point and i think we need to look at the incentives to make sure that safety is getting the appropriate first rung of consideration that it deserves. If the players were their own referees, anytime the offensive lineman wood block, it would have been a call. You know what im saying . I want to turn quickly to the announcement you just issued, the modernized tower simulation system for Traffic Controller training in my state. Can you elaborate how this technology will benefit our controller workforce . These simulators, they are in a way a simple technology, it is a circle of screens that really reproduces the environment of that particular airport and allows controllers to train on that environment, so that works for new controllers, but also if you have a problem at your airport, for example a hotspot area, or some other persistent problem we have identified, existing controllers can train to that problem in that simulator. So it can be thrown at them as a situation to see how they respond and it becomes a learning tool. So, it is really important for Current Training but also for helping move controllers faster through the training process. Thank you. Thank you mr. Allred. I recognize the gentleman from new york. Thank you chairman and thank you mr. Whitaker, we welcome your leadership, without question, the faa, at least in my estimation there has been in need of leadership and certainly faa reauthorization is critically important and we are hopeful that the senate moves earnestly and we can move that into law. Without question, americans have witnessed a lot of alarming incidents, to Aircraft Safety and Passenger Experience. I appreciate participating in the briefing last week regarding the door plug incident to look forward to the ntsb report and faas reaction and response. On the topic of safety, i was very happy to see in your testimony you referenced drug and Alcohol Testing for former pear stations, one of the first bills i introduced was the global Aircraft Maintenance Safety Improvement act which ensures safety protocols between domestic and foreign Aircraft Maintenance, i am very happy to say this provision has been included in the house passed faa reauthorization and im hopeful that it will remain a part of final law. In the area of in particular, both treatment of aircraft employees and Passenger Experience, supporting Mental Health and breaking down barriers is a top priority. That is why i joined the chairman and urging the faa to modernize its Health Protocols and taking steps to dismantle barriers that discourage individuals from seeking care. I do appreciate that you renc t and aviation medical class aviation rulemaking committee. I certainly, as do others report from that committee, and ask for your commitment today in supporting making Mental Health, in the treatment in particular of aircraft employees a top priority within the faas regular environment. Yes, it is a top priority and i think it is long overdue to update the approach to Mental Health and treat these issues and have a clear path to treatment and get people back in the cockpit as quickly as possible. We certainly acknowledge the rise in Mental Health concerns across america, made even more dangerous in confined environment like aircraft and certainly men and women who are flying and participating in that arena deserve adequate care. I look forward to the progress and swift action. Another question that i just wanted to touch on, as it relates to advanced air mobility, a topic that we all have focused on pretty acutely. Can you provide us a timing on the power lift as far as the faa committed to completing it in 2024, im certainly interested in hearing your insights and hearing what stage of development it is in. That rule is under development and we expect the final rule by the end of the year. Thank you mr. Whitaker, i want to reinforce my support of your efforts. In response to a comment and question from my colleague from massachusetts, the faa when it desires to has a great deal of influence on lancelot activity at airports, and certainly when there needs to be faa clarity, i encourage it. With that, i yield the balance of my time to mr. Nelson. Thank you, in the letter again, it is critical to provide the agency an opportunity to conduct research and determine mitigations, we talked about the research, i mentioned to you, and thank you for being here. I mentioned japan, new zealand, australia, canada, they are operating with zone 67, do you think it would be a good idea to reach out to those countries and ask them, how is it working for you . Canada, to the north, any issues with this . Do you think that would be may be a good idea to try to help accomplish what you asked for in this letter to conduct research and determine mitigations . Certainly if the legislation is passed, we will look at that option. Yes, i think it is very important because it is all there for you. I mentioned earlier about the part 135 operators that are flying the millionaires and billionaires, a lot of people cant fly that in this room here, they are flying around the millionaires and billionaires and those pilots can be 67 years old. And the faa is okay with that, correct . I mean, they can fly 67 years old, and fly the millionaires and billionaires in the same airspace, they fly in the same airspace, you would agree with that . Do i agree that they fly in the same airspace . They do, yes. How can we allow pilots to be 67 but not allow delta, united and american to do it when we know we have a Pilot Shortage . We dont set the age limits, the congress does point i know it, we are going to fix it today. Thank you, sheriff. I recognize the gentleman from california. Thank you, appreciate that, welcome mr. Administrator, thank you for being here. Last week, we learned again about spirit aerospace, and they incorrectly drilled holes in the fuselage, im wondering if you know at this point in time, has faa determined how many aircraft were delivered to customers with these problems and what actions are being taken to address this newest problem with boeing and its supplier . So, we are working with boeing to understand what happened here, so we are investigating that piece of it. These are small rivets that hold a window in place. So, likely what that means, while we know it is not to compliance, we want to understand why it has not been manufactured or designed, and then we will see what corrective actions need to be taken to repair the windows and when that has to happen. Im talking about incorrectly drilled in the fusil lodge that they drilled holes that were too close to the edge. Those were around a window holding. Okay, very good, very good. So, the house faa reauthorization bill act would create a new deputy administrator for safety and operations to engage in the certification and operational approval of lifesaving technologies. Can you share your thoughts on how technology will improve aviation safety and how you would use the new deputy minister to roll to further advanced technologies . I think that technology has been one of the great tools that weve had to reduce the accident rate and aviation, and i think theres a lot of benefit in expanding what is available, particularly in the ga aircraft to provide more Situational Awareness in the cockpit. I think the focus needs to be looking at ways to bring that technology to market as quickly as possible, recognizing that it has a positive impact on safety. So i can see that helping to facilitate that action. So, the deputy administrator would be really responsible to try to really prioritize this within the organization . I think we always want to prioritize safety, but it would be an Additional Research resource to have quicker implementation. Great, thank you. The faa and the professional aviation Safety Specialists have been in collective bargaining for over two years now. What is the status of that . My understanding is that the vast majority of terms have been agreed, as happens in these types of things, a handful that are still outstanding. We are committed to working as quickly as possible to try to get to a final resolution. I understand that following the january 24th faa approval of the 737 max 9, inspection plans in alaska and united returned aircraft to service, do you know how many remain to be inspected and have you heard from these airlines what their total estimated loss has been since the original grounding . I dont have any information on the Financial Impact of this, im sure they are dealing directly with boeing. As far as the number of aircraft that were returned to service, it has been about 90 so far, i dont have a precise number. Thank you, i yield back. You didnt want to yield your time to the gentleman from texas . I thought about it, but i thought i would pass. Thank you mr. Chairman. I would like to say thank you to administrator whitaker, being here today, runway safety is a critical aspect of aviation. Many runway incidents and near misses have been reported over the past year and you outlined in your testimony action the faa has taken to address these risks. What are some of the challenges you still face in addressing such safety risks . I think we dont have a lot of direct barriers other than capacity of manpower. So we have dispatched runway safety teams to virtually every major airport in the country to review the geometry of the airport and to assess what technologies might be helpful, whether it is as simple as lightings or signs or more complex surface awareness. The surface Awareness Technology in the tower is the most helpful and i think that is the intent at this point. Okay, how is the faa addressing workforce challenges, particularly in terms of acquiring and maintaining the expertise necessary for certifying new technologies such as Unmanned Aircraft systems and advancing air Mobility Technology . These new technologies do present challenges for us on the certification side. There are a lot of new systems, a lot of new capabilities that are new to aviation. So, bringing in the right workforce to work those issues is an ongoing challenge, we are competing with these companies that are developing those technologies. But, we are working to make sure we have those resources in place. What is the faa doing to ensure the agency is ready to fully implement the faa authorization legislation, which the senate has yet to act on, are you doing anything to anticipate your reauthorization in the house . Are you talking about the new legislation . Yes. When that is complete, we have a process we will run to identify the projects for us that come out of that and set up a Program Management approach so that we are tracking those, trying to meet the deadlines. And if the deadlines are not achievable, communicating that as quickly as possible, but i think the key will be open communication with the committee. I would recommend, there has to be broad agreement, and as you can see, this Administration Must be able to say between the committee and chamber as well as the senate, that you can anticipate what is coming in a number of areas. I would anticipate, if i may, if you could also anticipate some of these efforts. With that, i will yield my time. Thank you, sir. In your early testimony, you talked about you established, i think it was an independent Safety Review Team for the boeing situation, correct . There was an independent Safety Review Team established last year before i came in response to near misses. And they put out a report in november. And im all about safety, everybody in america, we have the greatest aviation, i mean our reputation is rock solid, we have done a very good job in this country as it relates to aviation safety. Could you consider asking a group like that to go review some of the records from japan, new zealand, canada, to look at it . Ask them, tell us about your history over here and your programs and having these pilots at 67 flying around, how is it working out . Dont you think that would be very useful information, not only for congress but for the faa administrator specifically . If that legislation does raise the age, we will certainly look at all the tools available. Absolutely, and i think that is fantastic, even with the part 135s, are you aware of any issues, has your office received phone calls about potential issues related to all the 135 operators that are flying right now while youre having this conversation . Get all the data, are you a receptacle of the complaints and the data safety regulations as it relates to part 135 . We will certainly look at the data as it relates to that. Are you aware of any issues with these pilots flying around in the same airspace as delta, at age 67 . I have not looked at the data to see if theres any issues around that. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, sheriff. We will take a moment of personal privilege here, the staff to my right have had enough of this, we are going to go ahead and fire him. [laughter] but seriously, to my right, he has a masters in aviation, and has been an incredible asset to this committee as we have gone through and built this near perfect aviation bill. I think this is going be the last subcommittee engine this week and i want to take a minute, hes going to be taking off at the beginning of next month and i wanted to thank him for his dedicated service, working in a bipartisan manner with the entire Aviation Team and i will say it again, has been a tremendous asset to the committee and i really do appreciate his service. [applause] i did want to fire him before he was able to resign. So chris, thank you very much, i really do appreciate your service and friendship. Good luck. With that, i recognize the gentleman from california. Thank you, and i would like to add my thanks to your staff, and i also want to say to mr. Nelson, im too old to yield any time to you so youre not going to get any of my time. Mr. Administrator, you have a long and illustrious career and i agree with many of the comments, but you have seen this industry, your industry regulates the airline companies, clearly the world has changed. And you mentioned this, it is the manufacturing problems, it is runway incursions, all those things to me send red warning signs and what im hearing from you so far is you accept that, not to be pollyannaish, but im afraid in many of these hearings, prior to you getting your position, my sense is that the faa was resting on its previous track record. And quite frankly, your organization reminds me of nasa just before the challenger disaster and the observation by the commission that institutional deviation, but with you it is large in the culture. The perfect storm to me is this long and wonderful relationship between the department of defense, military and aviation, both manufacturing and supplying workforce and this is changing at the same time we have issues around Climate Change and we are coming out of covid. Airbus and boeing, they had great profits after consolidation and now boeing has lost money. Airbus is close to losing money. Similarly in your conversations with the air carriers, the commercial air carriers, enormous pressure. Warren buffett had a great line about investing in airlines, he said i have an 800 number i call at three in the morning, and i say im afraid im going to invest in air stocks again, please talk me out of it. But he still did it. The Safety Culture versus the Risk Assessment from the details in the faa reauthorization, one of the parts we put in the case of alaska, the root cause can go back and find out who actually worked on that plane, what hours they worked, im told airbus has that information. So, those simple things from the Safety Culture i would like your response and as you talk to the ceos who are under enormous pressure coming out of covid, when you kept them in business. And with ridership going up, to avoid losses in an investment market that can move very quickly away from them that would create greater damage, and on top of that, youve got boeing that is not going to be able to supply the product that they are contractually already into and have serious financial disadvantages to delay that too long. So it is a long question about Safety Culture. How do you maintain Safety Culture or a return to Safety Culture that we used to have and i think we have lost, and we are one disaster away from the industry imploding. Thank you for the question. I think you have hit on some really true points. I have been reemphasizing since ive been at the agency that we cannot rest on our laurels, we have to be ever vigilant to look for risks in the system and that has been the focus for the past three months. And culture and safety is really important and its one of the things we are going to be looking at with boeing, weve got a Safety Culture review that was a part of the legislation that is going to be complete later this month. I think that will be informative. But at the end of the day, the goal is to make safe airplanes and i dont think if you dont have that Safety Culture, it is hard to make safe airplanes. So we are going be very focused on the quality process, and really looking at wherever the data takes us as we do this audit. We have to get back to a culture where safety is first. I dont care what his second, but safety has to be first and that is where we need to get. And on the operational side, same thing, talk to pilots and really express that we are pushing a lot of product from pressure from the operators point that is right, and from my realm, controllers was the first orders of business, a lot of folks working overtime. And have been doing so for years and that is not a sustainable thing in my view, so hiring as many controllers as we can and looking at fatigue as a risk that needs to be mitigated is our approach. Thank you, i yield back. I now recognize myself for five minutes, mr. Administrator, thank you for being here today, and i know it was touched upon by a couple of my colleagues already, but i have some further questions. 92 days ago, you were copied on a letter that was sent to the transportation secretary by members not only of this committee and other committees, but by the chairman of the subcommittee, the chairman of the full committee and 68 other members of the house. The letter asked very straightforward questions about the biden administrations plan to house Illegal Immigrants and migrants at faa sites and airports. Some of our largest transportation hubs in this nation. Including one that is just blocks away from my district at jfk airport. We requested a response by november 20th, 2023, today is february 6, 2024 and we havent gotten any response. So i would like to submit the letter for the record again, signed by 68 other members of the house, sent 92 days ago. And since we havent heard back, i would like to pose the questions from the letter to you right now. How many and which airports regulated by the faa currently host temporary or permanent shelters for Illegal Immigrants or other persons . I dont have any information about that. Okay. I also want to point out that probably not mentioned in the letter, and i knew it wasnt mentioned by my colleagues, i took a visit to jfk airport just days after this site was apparently approved. I coordinated with mayor adams office, ichor needed with the port authority, tsa, and i spent a career in the nypd as a detective and one of the most startling things that i found when i got to jfk airport was not the fact that the faa or the city of new york actually had me go all the way to jfk airport only to tell me that the meeting was canceled and they were not going to allow me to tour the facility, but the biggest concern that i have is that there is zero communication amongst agencies at that airport. Nobody knows who is in their, nobody knows what is going on, it is a transportation hub, probably one of the largest in the country and we have people just wandering the streets coming out of this facility, im not sure how anyone thought this was a good idea. Has the faa received or granted any request from an airport or a local, state, or federal agency between january 20th, 2021 and today to temporarily use a facility for purposes of hosting a migrant shelter . I dont have direct information, im happy to respond after with a response to that. To what extent has dhs consulted with the faa about the appropriateness of proposing to house migrants at airports . I dont have any direct information on that. If dhs has consulted with the faa, what has been the response . I have no direct information on this. Committee staff asked in a followup email if the faa could provide a detailed description of any analysis or assessment of the dhs housing plan or any other instance of airport migrant housing, that has been conducted by the faa in accordance with the faas safety Risk Management policy, the decision to approve housing of migrants poses a serious security threat. And represents failure of the biden administrations disasters border policies. Does the faa have a plan in place to ensure that any of these sites, even the ones that perhaps you dont know about yet, will no longer be used to house migrants . I dont have any information about that. So, you are the administrator of the faa and you dont have any information on any faa locations that have housed migrants or could potentially house migrants . To my knowledge, there are no faa locations that house migrants. Are there any locations that were approved to house migrants . I dont consider an airport an we approve Community Use agreements, yes point and at no point did the faa think that perhaps it was a bad idea to house migrants in these locations . I dont have any information on what faa was thinking before i got there. Okay, so when did you take reins as administrator . End of october. So november 6, 2023 was when the letter was sent, it is now february and we still have not received a response. Will you commit today in front of this committee that in one month you will respond to the questions that were asked in this letter . One month from today i will, yes. So, by march 6, 2024, we will have an answer to all the questions. Yes point thank you very much. I now recognize from new jersey, mr. Menendez. Thank you, did anybody focus on the helicopter noise we faced in our Congressional District, densely populated urban area, i have heard from countless constituents about helicopters that fly at low altitude for long times, shaking apartment buildings and disrupting public spaces such as Liberty State Park. Residents are concerned that helicopters are in using new flight paths. How does the faa monitor and enforce helicopter altitudes in decibel limits like the eighth Congressional District in Liberty State Park west mark we dont have direct authority over noise per se but what we do have is operating rules for helicopters so they are required to operate at certain altitudes as a traverse land. But beyond that, they fly routes according to what is available in the airspace. And the monitoring component, how do you monitor their altitude . They monitor their own altitude, we would get reports if theres any deviations that could come from a variety of sources. But, for all operations in the air, there are minimum altitudes to operate at. And what could the faa do to address persistent helicopter noise . I think the most effective tool that we have found is Community Meetings, sponsored by government, that are open and inclusive, so include not only the immediately affected areas but also areas surrounding that, so theres an ability to have a Community Dialogue around solutions. Last week i wrote to you highlighting the impact helicopter noise has on the district, my office has received a growing level of complaints, requesting opportunity to discuss the issue and potential solutions during a Public Meeting with your representative from the faa. I want to invite you to our district to experience this issue firsthand and to Work Together toward a solution by attending this Public Meeting with the Hudson County board of commissioners. We would be happy to have a representative participate, provided it is a governmentsponsored meeting and one that includes a very Broad Community and also useful to include zoning officials since some of this is also zoning related. We would be happy to broiled build a Broad Coalition that is able to attend. Switching gears, i commend the agencys efforts in taking on this issue. However im still concerned that assault against employees are not receiving the same response. They are working directly with customers who are dealing with complications with their travel. The reauthorization bill tasked the faa with implementing assault response plans, those plans have yet to be put into place and i have tried to fix this problem through my bill, while im pleased that the house version included pieces of this bill, the work is far from over. Do you know why these plans havent been implemented yet . Im not familiar with that specific plan, i do share your concern about assault on not only flight crew but in the airport, i think the airport space becomes a little more complicated, you dont have the clear authorities and the sort of captive environment, and it is unclear for example what tsas involvement might be, the local police, the airport, so i think the issue becomes murky. This issue has been raised to me and ive had some discussions with airport directors about that. So it is an issue of concern. We understand it is a jurisdictional issue. So i wanted to make sure we work with all partners to ensure all folks and employees are kept safe, especially as some of these travel challenges lead to upset passengers and they have an unfortunate impact. I look forward to working with you on this issue and i appreciate your testimony here today. I yelled back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Whitaker, ive heard from several aircraft manufacturers and component manufacturers that the certification process at the faa has become even more long and arduous than normal in a postcovid era, some of this they attribute to people not returning to work in the office yet after covid, some of it is because they are all new employees, that dont have as much familiarity as the senior employees did who left. What are you doing or what do you plan to do to improve this certification process so that u. S. Companies can be competitive and improve safety and efficiency for our pilots and passengers . It is a very important issue and we have a number of things we are looking at doing, creating more transparency in the process, so we identify where an application is and why it is not moving. Sometimes it is because we are still waiting for data or sometimes we have the data and we are not moving fast enough. I think there has been a little bit of overcorrection following the max events frankly, a little more conservative approach and i think having clear leadership and clear process so we can resolve decisions is an important part of that and we are looking at ways to do that. There is another area of efficiency that ive heard from people that may need to be addressed and it might not be articulated exactly correctly, but a pilot explained to me that when pilots have to leave for health reasons, and that is overcome, then they tried to get back into the system, theres not enough people or that process is also being delayed and has a long lead time and i think that is problematic given that the chronic shortage of pilots. Is there anything you can do about that . He is correct, ive had two flight instructors that went through that and they both complained about how long it took. It is not unrelated to the Mental Health arc that we have set up, just trying to make the system clearer and be able to get to the decisions more quickly so that is something we are looking at as well. Another thing, in that line of questioning with Pilot Shortages, training is a big issue and getting pilots through that process, and it came to my attention that the g. I. Bill is a Great Program for veterans, and it covers a lot of things but, it doesnt cover some of the things that you need to become a pilot and i would think using the g. I. Bill to get those hours that you need, to become a certified pilot, maybe more important than basket weaving degree, which the g. I. Bill will cover. So, would you be supportive of having more flexibility in the g. I. Bill so that we could use that money that these veterans have earned and service their country in order to become pilots . I absolutely would and i favor treating Pilot Training the way you treat any other educational endeavor to get a status. It is expensive to become a pilot and it takes a long time. I would fully support that point another question i have, we used to see these notices at the airport that says you need to have a real i. D. To fly by a certain date and i kept getting pushed back. Now i dont see the signs at all. Are we going to have to have a real i. D. That has the new and improved drivers license if you will in order to fly anytime soon . That would be regulated by tsa so im not familiar with that issue. Okay. Because i think it is a concern, theres a lot of bureaucracy that was implemented in order to do that. Another question i have, i know there were some pilots who left because of Vaccine Mandates and i dont know if the air Traffic Controller had the same issue. But, what are you doing to make it easier for them to come back to work . That is not an issue that i have run across, i will look into that and im happy to respond. But you are aware that some pilots didnt leave because of that mandate . Im happy to look at it. I appreciate you agreeing to look into that, because as we are looking into the chronic shortage, i think that is important to look at. Appreciate your time today, and good luck finding on the inefficiencies, im sure you will find all of them and you will have Perfect Solutions to everything and thank you for addressing the certification process, because i think that is really important. We want to make sure the companies are competitive and they can get their products certified that will increase awareness and safety for pilots and passengers. Thank you. Now i recognize [indiscernible] thank you mr. Chairman and Ranking Members for hosting this hearing, thank you so much mr. Whitaker for taking the time to be here. Not only as a member of this committee but as a mother and a frequent flyer myself, now because of this, this is also a deeply personal issue. When i fly with my kids and back home, the safety and security of air travel is essential. You have a mighty task in this new role and we know that you are up to it, thank you for your patience in handling all the questions today. I have two questions for you, one is in general for all air travelers and another specific for my district, we have talked in this hearing today about the differences in approval delegations. On this committee, we understand the differences between design and manufacturing approval delegations but, for the American People, they dont necessarily know that, they know that hundreds of people died in 2018 and 2019 because of the boeing 737 max. And they know that now there are terrifying experience is happening to travelers on essentially those same planes. What are we doing to not only assure safety, but assure that people can feel safe in this, after this investigation process . What are you specifically tasking to examine in terms of reclaiming certain approval authorities and if you can give some examples of that. Thank you, the tasking is looking at what has been delegated and what our options are for reeling in that delegation and what areas are being undertaken by the manufacturer that could be done by a third party, for example. It is a question of looking at having a neutral third party overseeing parts of this process. So we will see what they come up with. You are right, there is confusion between the design delegation which is really where a lot of delegation happens in manufacturing, where there is less delegation but there are functions that look like oversight, like Quality Control that dont seem to be properly executed. The audit is designed to allow us to understand what are the impacted areas, why is it not working, and what are the tools for fixing it, whether that is bringing a third party or somehow change other incentives or the process. Thank you. Again, for the sake of the passengers, for the sake of the industry which we rely on, we implore you to make it clear in these studies what has been done and what has been undertaken to ensure safety for the American People Going Forward. My second question is a little bit more district specific. Grand rapids is home to the Gerald R Ford International Airport, it is one of the busiest 75 airports in the entire country, one of the first to return to prepandemic levels. We had record travel numbers in 2023, close to 4 million travelers through the terminal, up 6 from the previous record. And yet, it has the oldest Airport Tower of all of the top 75 busiest. Currently there are no standards for how and when we replace these towers. In the faa reauthorization, which we are hoping the senate will act on any day now, but the important thing is, you dont need to wait for them to act, the faa owns this tower in the community cannot replace it until the faa says so. Can you speak a little bit to the importance of infrastructure in ensuring safety around the country . Infrastructure is a huge challenge, we have a lot of it at faa and a lot of it is really beyond its useful life, including for example all of the High Altitude control centers that are designed for no more than 50 years of service and they are pushing 60 at this point. The funding for that has been a challenge over time and maintenance falls behind. So, i can certainly look into that particular instance that you have cited but it is a problem throughout. Thank you, and we would be grateful for you having a look. Thank you for your testimony today. Thank you, i now recognize mr. Collins for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I guess i want to start out with, i have been running like crazy so i had to change hats for a second, but i had the opportunity last year to go to the Atlanta Airport and visited the tower, so we were down to just one more facility that we want to visit and very impressive, so i know youve got your work cut out for you. And in like so many agencies, and so many hearings that i attend, i think one of the main themes that i get over and over again is how we have such a lack of modernization and antiquated, i dont care if it is software, hardware, whatever it is, it seems like the federal government just doesnt do anything to stay up to date or improve their technology. So last year, from my perspective, it looked like the department of transportation have spent a lot of time on just changing the name of that acronym, instead of dating it 30yearold software which is what they should have had. Can you tell me what steps you have taken since your confirmation to speed up the modernization of technology, and what other specific systems you may have updated . I think one of the challenges that we have is, as we do modernize, we get stuck with a lot of legacy systems that are hard to take out of the airspace. Even some of the systems that were in place before we were born are still used, and sometimes its the military that relies on those systems, sometimes its just folks that have been flying for a long time. We ended up supporting a huge amount of antiquated systems and that impedes our ability to modernize. There has been a lot of modernization over the past 10 or 15 years, whether you have seen it, basically a new platform for technologies to make the system more efficient. But, there are over 1000 systems that make up the airspace. Some of them are pretty old and i think what we saw is we need to have the redundancies in place to make sure there is if there is a failure, it doesnt bring the whole system default. Part of what i will do Going Forward is to have conversations about what the next phase of modernization is. Now we need to talk about how these new technologies advance the system and how it will operate in the future. One of the other policies that im focused on in this committee is highspeed, High Altitude travel. And Civil Aviation as a matter of fact. And we got put into the faa reauthorization, that states that the faa needs to come up with a study on how to certify new hypersonic engines. And if you note, if you look at the european counterpart, they already have issued a road map for High Altitude operations, for hypersonic, supersonic aircraft. Can you tell us what faa is doing to prepare similar guidance for american airspace and further can you tell me what else the agency can do to america ensure that america leads this field . That will be part of what we look at as we talk about the airspace of the future and we will also look at what other jurisdictions are doing so we dont have to reinvent the wheel but i think we need also our own company has a road map that integrates these technologies and gives us a way to bring them on as quickly as possible while keeping that same level of safety that we all want. I just wanted to make a last quick comment. There were about 40 down on air Traffic Controllers, we use a lot of veterans and they are great people to put in those positions because they are very organized and dedicated and i would just caution you, it seems like we have made a move to get away from hiring people and qualifications and hiring them on classifications. I can assure you, we hire everybody on qualifications and i can also tell you that we have just recently put in changes to be much more flexible in how we hire out of the military because we are able to hire from the military and put them directly into the facilities. Thank you. I yield back. I know recognize miss Holmes Norton for five minutes. Thank you for holding this hearing to learn more about the challenges the federal Aviation Administration is currently facing and to emphasize the importance of passing along term faa reauthorization bill soon. Mr. Whitaker, as cochair of the quiet skies caucus and the member that represents the district of columbia, which is plagued by aviation noise, i have been fighting to reduce aviation noise in d. C. And across the country, while the safety of the Aviation System must be the faas priority, the faa needs to do more to combat airplane and helicopter noise which will harm the Health Quality of life and the Structural Integrity of homes. Last year, i got two revisions including in the house passed faa reauthorization bill to combat helicopter noise in d. C. One of these provisions would require the faa within 180 days to create and implement a helicopter noise sharing mechanism for all helicopter operators in the National Region and to make the Data Collected accessible to the public online. This data would help us develop Additional Solutions to address helicopter noise. My other provision would direct the Government Accountability on this to conduct a study of reducing helicopter noise in d. C. Almost all of which is generated by government helicopters. This study would be required to consider the extent to which military operators consider operating over unPopulated Areas outside of d. C. For training missions. The extent to which vehicles or aircraft other than helicopters could be used for emergency and Law Enforcement response, and the extent to which helicopter operators have assessed and addressed the noise impacts of various factors of operating helicopters including altitude, the number of flights, time of day of flights, types of aircraft, operating procedures and Pilot Training. Mr. Whitaker, what, if any steps is the faa taking to reduce airplane and helicopter noise over Populated Areas like the district of columbia . What i can say is, in the past several years, they have made some improvements in that area. They have hired specific folks who are focused on community engagement, and in situations where airspace is being redesigned or there are persistent noise issues, they will engage with organizations to have Community Meetings and understand the views of the citizens and see if there are realtime changes that can happen in the airspace to try to mitigate we havent heard yet. I dont know the specifics of d. C. , i know we are on a fairly tight footprint and the approach is fairly limited by the restricted airspace, so there probably arent a lot of options beyond the north and south arrival and departure for dca, so that might be a limiter in this case. Thank you, i yield back, mr. Chairman. I will recognize mr. Nelson for five minutes. Thank you so much. Understand, im on this subcommittee so im the last one in line here, but hopefully we can finish this and thank you so very much for your time. Obviously this is very important to the industry, it really is, this legislation obviously has passed the house, and overwhelmingly, and now it is sitting over in the senate. I think we beat the dead horse on part 135, Everybody Knows that we have pilots flying around that are 67 years old, andys private aircraft with everybody else, with the delta, and we fire them at the age of 65. That doesnt make a lot of sense to me. I find this letter that was issued just a day or so before the Senate Markup of the bill that has lingered for over a year. On a matter that has been repeatedly proposed over four years. A matter that which you were asked specifically in the hearings, before the Appropriations Committee just a few months ago and you answered, about faithfully executing the legislation of congress and i think we agreed with that. This is their decision to make and you will implement once it is passed. So now it seems like this letter, which i believe is full of flaws and we have pointed those out, it seems to have some opposition to raising the age. If you read the letter and between the lines, it appears that the faa, that you are against raising the age, that is not true, you are not opposing it. My intent was not to oppose it, my intent was to identify the issues we have identified during Technical Assistance which is around International Compliance and data for what this means. Yes, sir, and i think we have addressed all of those issues, when we raised the age from 60 up to 65, all of those issues got worked out. We obviously had it here, and now we dont even have the gray on gray. The point is, looking at your background, i think you are 62 years old, and i think you have a fiveyear term, do you think that we should give you a packet before you finish, do you believe that we should give you a test to make sure you are all there when you turn 65, i mean, we do it for the pilots. They get their ekg and physicals, it is a stringent process. We do it for them, why shouldnt we do it for you . I think with respect to regulating airmen and the safety of the mass, the medical certification is there to protect i agree. And you agree, we have the safest aviation record in the past 10 years, things were going very well knowing that we passed legislation that allowed part 135 to fly at 67, do you have any issues with part 135 right now . As i said earlier, i have not looked at the data. I will help you, there is no problem there. You have heard of wheels up, deltas private version, i wonder how they would feel about the delta ceo, they start raising concerns about their safety as it relates to part 131. This guy right here has been at delta for 30 years, he is 63 1 2. America, we are going to fire him in 18 months. Its an arbitrary number, we just come up with it, 65, lets just fire him. He goes through all the testing, but we are going to fire this man because of that age, but yet you are out there touting a project to recruit retired, experienced air Traffic Controllers but an existing fully qualified and not yet retired pilot is somehow unsatisfactory. I think mr. Massie talked about it once, retirement age, nobody brought it up because it passed the committee. It passed the house of representatives overwhelmingly. And now it is over in the senate, now he is going through a train wreck and trying to get you to confuse the other members in the senate with this letter making it sound like this isnt safe. All the data is there, the environment testing is there come you can reach out to japan, all these other countries, you know weve got clients pilots flying at 67, all the data is there. And the lawsuit, 2500 union paying members filed a lawsuit on embassy for a breach of duty for fair representation. Shame on him, lets get this done and i think it is incumbent upon you to get some clarification as it relates to this letter before the senate meets on thursday. Would you be willing to do that for me, look at this letter . And try to say listen, there are some problems with this letter, it is not true. I think i have clarified the intent of the letter. Very good, i appreciate that, i yield back. Are there any further questions from members of the committee who have not been recognized . That concludes our hearing for today, i would like to thank the witness or his testimony, the committee stands adjourned. Two years ago democracy faced the. Thursday President Biden delivers the state of the Union Address during a joint session of congress. Watch live coverage beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Followed by President Bidens state of the union speech. Then alabama senator will give the republican response and well get your reaction by taking your phone calls, texts and social media comments. Watch the state of the Union Address live thursday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Cspan or online at cspan. Org. Nonfiction lovers, cspan has a number of podcasts for you on the afterward podcast and on q a. Hear podcast that feature fascinating authors. And the about books podcast takes you behind the scene of the Nonfiction Book with industry up tkaeupts and best sellers lists. Find all of the podcasts by downloading the cspan now podcast. Cspan is your unfiltered look at government. Were funded by these companies and more including buckeye brand. Buckeye broadband supporting cspan as well as these providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. Next testimony from paul nakasoni and other top cyber officials. Theyll talk about threats from china before the u. S. China competition. Warning that chinese hackers plan to attack infrastructure with the goal of suplanting the u. S. As the world power. Claims china is preparing to cause societal panic and chaos. Exit selectivity it will come to order. This is a short hearing weve never had this combination of witnesses. A collection of expertise to help us make sense of what the chinese, and his partys doing in cyberspace and i can better defend ourselves. Our hats