Good morning. And i want to thank the witnesses for joining todays hearing on the implementation of the faa reauthorization act of 2018. One year ago, this committee wrote comprehensive Bipartisan Legislation to raise the bar on aviation safety, improve the flying experience for the traveling public, better prepare and diversify the aviation workforce and foster innovation in the u. S. Airspace. Todays hearing is a critical milestone in the subcommittees oversight work to ensure the timely implementation of the law in accordance with our intent and to address new challenges. Although the faa has made some progress on fulfilling the laws directives, ongoing implementation delays threaten the important work needed to advance u. S. Aviation and aerospace and maintain our global leadership. Our first panel of witnesses are dan ellwell, faas deputy administrator and joel savat. Mr. Elwell and zavt, i expect your testimony administrations efforts to swiftly implement last years law. I would note theyre joined by staff from faa and d. O. T. And the staff will be available to help us answer any of our questions as well. Witnesses on todays second panel reflect a broad range of aviation stakeholders who are uniquely positioned to comment on what is working, what is not, and what congress can do to keep the faa and d. O. T. On track. I expect well cover a lot of ground today. So let me walk briefly through a few of my priorities. Safety is the committsubcommittp committee. The Congress Must ensure appropriate safety rules are in place to safely accommodate this demand. Notably, the lack of modern rest rish requirements for Flight Attendants remains an issue. Allows airline to roster flight attenadapt attendants for eight hours of rest. Instead of modifying the 1998 rule, provide at least ten hours of rest by november 4th of last year as directed in the bill, the faa just this week issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, soliciting comments on the cost and benefits of compliance with the mandate. Im concerned that this action is yet another unnecessary delay. So mr. Elwell, ill expect you to shed more light on the fa oorkss decisifaas decisi decisionmaking related to the issue. Particularly, as some 15 airlines have already implemented the mandate are currently working toward compliance. The bill requires the faa responding to incidents involving smoke or fumes in cabins, as well as a commission to study incabin air quality. These directives are overdue, so i hope you can provide an update on how the faa plans to fulfill these mandates. Congress as well must assure the faa officially integrated Unmanned Aircraft systems or uas into the National Airspace system. Congress must also ensure that integration is safe. This committee made the necessary reforms in last years bill to ensure the agency could move forward on a Remote Identification rule. Although, rulemaking was initiated more than one year ago, the publication date has been repeatedly delayed. In july, i joined chair defazio and Ranking Member sam graves and garret graves raising questions about the delays in issuing the remote i. D. Rule. But our questions remain unanswered. Iministrator elwell mr. Szabat, i expect youll provide us with those answers today. The faa in partnership with three uas sites has successfully completed test flights under phase one of the uas Traffic ManagementPilot Program and look forward to hearing more about the Lessons Learned from that program to date. As the committee continues to support advances in u. S. Aviation, the success of those efforts is possible with the investment in the next generation of engineers, pilots, mechanics and innovators. The authorization act includes a comprehensive Workforce Development title including my provision to create a new task force to encourage High School Students to enroll in aviation manufacturing, maintenance, and engineering apprenticeships. With global aviation becoming more competitive im concerned by the faas lack of progress on this mandate as well as continued delays to establish a women in aviation Advisory Board and encourage women and young girls to pursue aviation careers. Improving access to workforce training and diversifying the aviation workforce is an allaround win for employers, job seekers and the aviation and aerospace sectors. The faa reauthorization act includes numerous provisions to improve the air travel experience for more than the 900 million passengers who fly in the u. S. Each year. Years of championing the effort to improve accessibility of air travel for passengers with disabilities and pleased to see the reauthorization act included a robust title focused on improving the curbtocurb experience for these passengers. However, the departments commitment to these goals has rightly been called into question as significant delays on rulemaking, several key mandates persist. Moreover, the public is still waiting for the final action on rulemaking to ensure passengers with disabilities can access lav to lavatories on singleaisle airplanes, an action i asked be includesed in 2016. Last years act includes safety for the traveling public, airline employees, addressing Sexual Harassment and assault through open reporting and increased accountability. Theres no doubt the faa and d. O. T. And this committee have our work cut out for us. Timely implementation of the longterm reauthorization act will provide stability for the nations Aviation Community, support the advancement of new technologies, improve american competitiveness and above all, ensure aviation safety. I want to thank, again, the witnesses for being here today. I look towaforward to the discussion. And for Opening Statement i turn to Ranking Member garret graves. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. Often, we pass laws and move on. We send out press releases. We have signing ceremonies. We move on. This law was signed in this bill was signed into law about a year ago. Almost a year ago. It includes over 400 pages of text, as undersecretary szabat includes in his testimony, it includes nearly 360 deliverables to the congress to this committee. 360. Theres an awful lot of work that went into this legislation, and we need to make sure that the outcomes actually yield or represent that congressional intent. The process of signing a bill into law is just the beginning. The reality is that implementation is everything, as is the case in many circumstances. This bill lays out or addresses policy debates in any longstanding areas where there has been dispute or been differences or a lack of a decision. It truly lays the groundwork for the future of aviation and the future of aviation infrastructure. This legislation makes a lot of progress in terms of addressing the future of aviation safety, how that applies not just to the aircraft but also to the Information Systems and the ontheground networks adds w s. This bill is a bipartisan bill. Strong, strong support from republicans and democrats. Strong vote in the house of representatives moving forward. But i want to say it again, all of this is for naught if the faa doesnt do what we directed them to do in the first place. Mr. Chairman, im glad were holding this hearing today. I think that we need to ensure that we stay on top of this and stay on top of the implementation and carry out our oversight responsibilities properly. I understand what has been accomplished and what still needs to be done. Its important we look to the future and decide what were going to do next. We fully understand the implementation of this legislation. I want to thank the witnesses on both panels for being here today and for your input. Im interested in hearing how the faa implemented provisions related to the new technology such as unmanned aerial systems, aircraft systems. Also want to learn the status of numerous safety process streamlining and Consumer Protection efforts. Thank you, again, mr. Chairman, for holding todays hearing and yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, mr. Graves. I turn to the full committee, mr. Defazio of oregon for five minutes. Thanks, mr. Chairman. Welcome the witnesses here today. We did send a lot of mandates. The chair listed a number. I share his concerns over those. Ill list a few others that are at the top of my list. I understand it was a big workload, but if you prioritize and address the principle concerns, particularly those that relate to safety, you know, that will be Good Progress. Flight attendant fatigue. 25 years. The faa realized fatigue is a real issue and that, you know, when youre dealing with safety critical personnel, pilots, weve adopted rules, when it comes to Flight Attendants, safety critical personnel, we havent. The rules allow an airline to keep a Flight Attendant on duty for 14 hours then you get an 8hour break. Eight hours to get off the airplane, get out of the airport, get on the shuttle, go to the hotel. Maybe make a phone call, take a shower, go to bed, get up and be back within eight hours. I dont know. Maybe you get three, four hours sleep if youre lucky. I thought we were very, very defe defendtive and clear and it would not be necessary to go through a lengthy rulemaking and im hoping that we can expedite that in the near future. Then we had the issue of cabin evacuations. When i first came to congress, i was aware of the manchester crash where people died piled up like cordwood trying to get out the overwing exist. It was a survivable crash. It took me five years in congress to get a rule that said we would take out and make space to get at the overwing exits. Two years later the industry came back with a fake study said, oh, no, that actually delays evacuations if you take those seats out. Well, we pushed back on that. They didnt put them back in. Now theyre cramming in more and more and more seats closer and closer together. People are getting bigger and we havent done a real safety evacuation drill in i think 20 years or 25 years. Were using computer simulations. I dont believe we can meet the standard anymore of 90 seconds which has been deemed to be critical. Now, if the faa thinks you can have five minutes in a survivable crash in a fire, well, then, tell us that. But if you dont think that, then we have to find out whether or not the current rules accommodate a 9 osecond evacuation. We had we have a reallife example which was the americanairlines flight in chicago which was a wide body, so it wasnt one of the new really crammed in planes, and it took them well over 2 minutes and 21 seconds to evacuate the plane. The plane wasnt even full. So telling me that these new economy carriers that cram people in so theyre sitting like this, i want to get the ceos here someday. Im going to get some of those seats and going to put them in them and keep them here for four, five hours, see what they think i wont be chairing that meeting. Secondary cockpit barriers. Bill lapinski, not dan, and i were on this issue before 9 11. The vulnerability of the flight decks. And united actually installed a few barriers in 757s. I was down there visiting their Maintenance Facility in San Francisco once. I said, what do you call that . They said, we call those defazios because youre bugging us so much. They didnt equip all the planes and we had a preventable tragedy, had we been able to prohibit access. Yes, weve armed the doors and now we have Flight Attendants menacingly behind a cart. And it would be very hard for a person with strength and skill to vault over that cart, knock the Flight Attendant down, take out the pilot and get to the flight deck. That was really, really clear. Now, the industry is very opposed. Its going to put a little more wa weight on the plane. And the manufacturers and the former chairmen tried to say, no, no, we didnt mean what the law said. We meant we meant new types. No, the law is clear. All newly manufactured airplanes will have these barriers. And, again, you know, this is being slow walked. I see that they, you know, asked for another delay. Theyre not releasing their recommendations. We got to get that out. Drones took took me about five years to rule the very, very powerful airplane lobby and chinese toy manufacturers to require that we could have remote i. D. They prohibited the faa from regulating these things. Sooner or later, were going to ingest a drone. Whats going to happen . I asked the faa three years ago, what happens if one of those crappy little quadcopters goes into a turbine . We havent had the live test. I dont know what the delay is. This is very serious. And if this you know, the commercial drone people are all with me on this. Its like, because if we have one accident because of some jerk illegally flying a toy drone, theyre all going to get grounded and its going to be quite a mess. So we really, really need that rule and now i think were not even going to see a proposed rule until december. You know, i dont know. Is it the model aircraft people, is it the chinese . Whos keeping whos holding this up . Then finally foreign repair stations. We just had an incident last week of what appears to be a terrorist action on domestic soil by a domestic employee. And, you know, i have for years, again, with bill lapinski, thats how long its been, expressed concerns and with Jerry Costello about foreign re pa repair stations. We did some visits. K we cant do unannounced visits. The state Department Says then they can do unannounced visits here. Who cares, we dont have anything to hide i hope. They dont do drug testing, as we require by law, doebnt do alcohol, drug, and background checks. Were doing massive, massive, amounts of maintenance overseas. Just like this guy tried to sabotage the plane there, what about somebody doing a decheck down in one of these foreign repair stations . Thats a way to thats a way to take down a plane without having to get onboard and without having to access the flight deck. So these are safety critical, potentially lifethreatening rules that we need. We need them as quickly as possible. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thaurnk you. Now turn to Ranking Member graves for five minutes. Thanks, chairman larsen, Ranking Member graves, for having this hearing. Very glad the subcommittee is focusing on this for 2018. Very glad about that. This act is the longest reauthorization in more than two decades and its passage last october was very bipartisan. It was widely praised. But among other things, faa reauthorization, it gives the faa and industry muchneeded stability. It provides steady funding for airport and infrastructure across the country and allows manufacturers to get products to market on time, stay kpiscompete and provides millions of good paying american jobs. It also streamlines the regulatory progress to encourage innovation in new technologies. Im particularly proud in the reauthorization of the provisions that address issues important to the general Aviation Community such as supporting small and rural airports through the new supplemental grant program, increase in aircraft registration, times from three years to seven years. Common sense changes in faa hangar use and policy related to the construction of an aircraft. Tackling important general aviation safety issues such as marking towers. And faa fees for large aviation events such as air venture in oshkosh, wisconsin, and one in lakeland, florida. Clarified faa policy relating to nonprofits when it comes to accepting donations for living history flight experiences. Promoted the streamlining and evaluation of regulations represented to certificates for pilots of experimental aircraft including the restoration of the all makes and models certificate. Supporting programs to develop the aviation workforce of the future. This is just to make a few. Its vitally important the workforce Training Programs and studies directedly the law. Its very important that theyre implemented in a timely manner. During the next seven days, General Assembly of the general aviation organization, iko, is going to meet in montreal. Im pleased faa leadership is going to be there with other regulators to discuss International Standards. And im also pleased that one of those items to be discussed is International Pilot training standards. And i understand the United States is going to present a white paper on automation and dependency in the cockpit. And ive said before, ive said this before, and im going to say it again because i dont think it can be repeated enough, that the pilot is the most important safety feature in any cockpit and his or her ability to fly the plane when Technology Fails is absolutely critical to safety. The growth of the commercial Aviation Industry around the world is so important to our Global Economy and it has numerous benefits, but that growth and rapid expansion, especially in developing nations, cannot come at the expense of safety and good training. I look forward to hearing from todays witnesses. I wish, and this isnt a criticism, mr. Chairman, but i wish that we could hear from other segments of the Aviation Community, such as general aviation, the airlines, manufacturers, airports, safety inspectors, air Traffic Controllers on the g. A. Community, so i hope todays hearing is just the first in a series on the implementation of the reauthorization law and, again, i want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and i yield back the balance of my time. Tha