Ahead of the federal the head of the federal Aviation AdministrationMichael Whitaker reiterated to lummox bring a public hearing that their safety is a top priority and agency still reviewing boeings manufacturing procedures after a door plug mishap on board at Alaska Airlines flight. After the incident the faa cup really grounded over 150 planes and ordered inspections. This house transportation subcommittee hearing is about threee hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the subcommittee on a visual come to order. I hasis been in the consent of the. [cheers and applause] offers. Without objections order. Also ask members not of the baby people and ask question without objection. So ordered. As of monday members wish to consider dr. Parker please email to documentstimail. House. Gov. I now recognize myself for the purposes of an Opening Statement for five minutes. Thank you for being here, administrator whitaker and i want to first off congratulate you for your unanimous confirmation vote. As youou know achieving some of that in todays times is quite remarkable, and we appreciate your expertise and look forward to working with you. I hope you understand that thats a strong support from congress, but also an enormous recognition of the responsibility ofog the job that you have now taken on. Weve heard a lot of descriptions about americas Aviation Industry, everything from its the Gold Standard, its therd leading edge of technolog. And weve also seen inte recent months that weve had incredible challenges in the Aviation Industry. I cant say enough that the Aviation Industry needs to be successful. In each be successful in terms of promoting technology, regulatory stability, safety, and partly at a think often folks lose sight of the Passenger Experience. Every american enjoys of the enormous benefit of the collaborative work commercial aviation has never been safer or more prosperous. Our aerospacece industry moves hundreds of millions of people every year, creates millions of jobs, trillions of dollars in economic activity, and forms a critical pillar of national defense. Maintaining our Gold Standard aviation safety is of vital to the United States and should be Urgent National priority, but the only guarantee of Gold Standard is what got us a yesterday is not going to be what keeps us there tomorrow. In the past year, and as i know to be seen several aircraft manufacturing defects, aircraft engine fires, all passenger and freight to strip off i for, nr misses at airports, pilot mentalHealth Issues, joe aviation accidents, poor Airline Customer service, especially for disabled passengers and other challenges. The subcommittees received testimony at the annexation struggling as integrating drones, commercial space transportation and Cybersecurity International airspace system and updating the technology thats needed to ensure efficiency and performance of air Traffic Control systems. Forys each and everyone of those instances you can find a provision in the house passed faa bill to address those issues. Im going tooi see that they ca. For one of those issues you can find provisions and house passed faa bill to address these issues. I want to remind you that we passed that bill months and months ago, and well before the september 30 expiration. That didnt happen by mistake. We worked methodically and want to thank chairman Ranking Member larsen and Ranking Member cohen, our leader sam graves, chairman sam graves and all the Aviation Team for plowing through literally thousands and thousands ofth stakeholder, a public, member of congress requests, and ultimately yielded a strong bipartisan, a strong bipartisan bill. Despite the differences, the house was successful in passing that bill byfu a vote of 35169, and similar to your confirmation vote in these times, that is absolutely extraordinary. Since the passage of the bill has received support from all corners of the aviation sector, joe aviation, business aviation, manufactures, labour members of the faa own workforce, commercial litigation, groups representing passengers, airports and on and on. The house but his legislation makes transformative changes in the Passenger Experience and in private aviation. It provides innovators of the Unmanned Aerial Systems and advanced mobility space, regular certainty they need to deploy some of the most advanced technologies weve seen in aviation. We also make meaningful reforms to expedite agency processes and to position the agency to manage an everexpanding Aviation System. And the bill contains numerous provisions aimed at improving aviation safety. With all the recent incidents, accidents, near misses, and problems, its nothing short of malpractice that the senate hasnt even bothered to mark up the faa reauthorization bill. The senates repeated failure f has destroyed 650 million in airport investment this year alone and delayed the enactmente of urgently needed Safety Measures and reforms. There has never been a worse time to leave the faa reauthorized, yet thats where the senates inaction has led us. Youre doing the best you can with the job you have, mr. Administrator, but its clear to me that the senates inability to do its job has realworld consequences that directly affect American Leadership in aviation and the safety of the traveling public. We stand ready, willing, andav able to help negotiate the faa reauthorization bill whenever the senate is ready. Hopefully, you can do something to help us with that, mr. Administrator, and hopefully, the conversation we have today underscores the urgency of getting a longterm comprehensive reauthorization bill signed into law. Ready to go . I know recognize Ranking Member carper for five minutes of an Opening Statement. Thank mr. Jerk. I disagree with everything he said, that we need to fund ukraine initial at the same time i described you are here to listen to it. [laughing] thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you, mr. Whitaker for coming before us today, such an important time with aviation and using an faa, appreciate that. Its important that we have leadership, but the thing i care most about people in the industry over the a last six, seven, eight months. We need a strong administrative and wendy and administrative and i think anybody is please with your selection. But without the recent problems, obviously natural fault, with boeing, the 737 max nine. We have airline collision, increase the runway incursions have been around for a while. And they know that thats on the top of your mind is getting something straightened out withh those potential intersections of airlines with the faa and Getting Better airTraffic Controllers, or more airon trc controllers really, more, we need to get a pipeline going to get more of everybody to give an opportunity to participate. The faas prompt response to the tjanuary 5 boeing incident is commendable, grounding more than what henderson aircraft and audit of going and 7 what you de there has beenhe a thinker but e agrees with and appreciate. Boeing must be held accountable because as you said and others have said safety is first and thats, that needs to be made clear. As this incident in the max eight crashes demonstrate, complacency is a luxury we cannot afford when it comes aviation safety. Boeing and the faas oversight must make necessary changes to its venture similar incidents and excellence to happen again. With the doors flung off in middle of the air or planes wholly falling out of the sky or whatever. As the faa and the ntsb have investigations into this incident accident unfold our subcommittee will stand ready to work with youth and although the parties to enact religious changes that are necessary but, of course, the first amended to do is get the reauthorization bill passed. Weve done our job, now that your job to get the senate to do their job. I want to thank all the faa employees to work day and night to ensure that no stone was left unturned when it came to redoing max ninth nine inspections as well as the Airline Maintenance and for many these thatuction to ensure aircraft can safely transport passengers again. Ntsb chair did a great job and shes having some of us over for briefing later today and showing us some of the problems, and we appreciate that. Shes been thorough. Based on what is been committed to nurture us in the public thus far, the work is been outstanding. We must everything we can to pass our next reauthorization. Done that by the next deadline march 8 it quickly approaching. We Neither Senate colleagues to act. Because we need to make sure that the airTraffic Control has more people and its beefed up. There are tricky issues with the reauthorization of the committee worked in bipartisan way toto fd Common Ground to pass a bill can save hundreds of provisions that would preserve and enhance the Aviation System and it showed robust and vibrant future for use aviation. That bill passed by an overly bipartisan margin, help the sin in the bipartisan as well. I look forward to your testimony. Appreciate the work of chairman graves, Ranking Member larsen and the other chair graves, we put together good bill and help we can have some success, compass on the American Public. Airplanes flying that we dont lose businesst to airbus. The french have made overtures what they tried you to make sure there are safe planes reduced all over the world but particular i guess plants for airbus such an important industry. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you, right member Corporate Network isfu a chairmn of the full Committee Chairman sam graves for private. F thank you, chairman graves and Ranking Member cohen for the hearing and thank you, administrator whitaker for coming in. The pleasure to have you before the aviation committee. United states Aviation System has been aoc major focus of our committees work this congress. Last year we overwhelmingly as has been the thing here so far today we overwhelmingly passed a comprehensive bipartisan Aviation Administration reauthorization that is going to dramatically improveha american aviation and the faa. T unfortunately the bill as has been pointed out and its many improvements have been held up in the senate for more than six months unfortunate the senate it appears the senate is poised to resume its markup of their faa bill and get a salad for dissing itit finally happens and i look forward to sitting down with our Senate Commerce committee counterparts to start reconciling the two bills. Serious issues within our Aviation System had played up time and time again on the nightly news and it might be the consequences of having no longterm faa bill are exacerbating them. Now more than ever american aviation and faa need some bold direction from congress, and we cant afford business as usual or half measures. Our bill will secure the growth and robust leadership the American People deserve in their aerospace system. While Congress Continues to move the faa reauthorization towards the finish line, were looking to you, or depending on you, to pick up that slack. Many of the provisions in the housepassed bill are noncontroversial and can be limited by the faa without any additional authorityd from congress. I would urge you and your staff to start laying the groundwork for anun expeditious and efficit Agency Implementation of the provisions with congressional intent in line with the congressional intent. Today is a great opportunity for members to highlight the aviation, their aviation priorities the that matter m and ensure that the issues are heard and understood, and hopefully are addressed. We also want to hear what your impressions of the agency are since youve taken over the agency, center confirmation, and what your priorities are going obvious in moving forward finally, we look forward to hearing an update on what the faa is doing regarding the flight 1282 accident and what youve learned so far. I do want to thank you, administrator, and your staff, for your very Effective Communication so far related to the incident and your related findings that you found so far. Open communication i think is important, a very important component in the committee having confidence in the actions taken by the faa, and hope that this continues as agency progresses with its oversight working on it and we all share the same goal of ensuring that the safety of our Aviation System and maintaining that Gold Standard that we all talk about. So with that, thank you again for coming before the committee, and with that idea back the balance of my time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rank a member of the full committee mr. Larsen frankness of five minutes. Is one, administrator whitaker. Thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it very much. Weve got a lot to discuss. This unit comes at a critical time. First with review the implication of the 2018th faa reauthorization which expired last september. Second, we have to getet jim to push for the passage of the copperheads a long range 2023 faa reauthorization reauthorization which passed the athouse last july. And finally we must examine the problems that the recent 737 max nine incident exposed. Safety has always been this committees top roadie and the in u. S. Is responsibly, is responsible for safely transporting hundreds of millions of passengers each yeaf without fear of harm or injury. Americans have to have full confidence in our Aviation System. That confidence must be justified. This committeesu must ensure tht the faa has the resources and tools it needs to effectively conduct its investigations, its audits and enforcement actions. As always weit have to remain vigilant to ensure Something Like this accident, that the likelihood of this accident happening is decreased substantially. I january 5, the accident was terrified of an onboard but thanks to the calm and professional actions of the t flight crew everyone landed safely. I fully support as his committee does the faas decisive response to this accident which included grounding the effective max nine fleet, a a separate investigan into whether boeing delivered on noncompliant aircraft to its customer, an overarching audit of boeings wax production lines and suppliers and a prohibition on increasing boeing 737 max production rate his Quality Control issues are resolved. Unfortunately its at the first time weve seen aircraft Quality Control issues in recent history. In may of 21 then chair defazio and i wrote to the department and the faa and boeing with concerns about no less than nine report of Quality Control issues at boeing production facilities. Since then there been dozens more reports of similar issues leading to emergency fixes and delays in production. The Safety Culture of any organization flows from the top and i urge the point leadership to take timee now to examine tht culture that theye have currently, that it is currently instilled and to improve. I look forward to the implication of the 2020 certification reform bill which this committee passed including the recommendations from the boeing Safety Culture review. Boeing has some of the most skilled hardworking and technically proficient workers in the world, and they depend on their leadership to instill the right policies so they can effectively do their jobs. Thesee dedicated women and men who work at boeing plants deserve answers and the flying public deserves answers. I also look for to the ntsbs preliminary port and the findings of the faas investigations. Ill continue to work with the chairs of the committee and subcommittee and the Ranking Member to take any potential legislative oversight actions needed to ensure the safety in our skies. Now moving on to reauthorization. As the committee continues its oversight of the max nine accident response we cant forget our other responsibilities. We passed an faa billhe in july. It passed 35169. We are waiting Senate Action and you still create a framework to ensure a safer, cleaner, a safer, cleaner, greener and more innovative and successful u. S. Aviation system. Aviation safety their numerous gaps that have to be addressed since the last authorization which we enumerated in the the review team report. The house bill addresses these issues including the hiring of air Traffic Control, installation of service, surface surveillance technology, administrator whitaker look for to hearing your takeaways from sa to review report and with the faas doing to implement the recommendations. We have to do more to ensure all p