Good morning. I want to welcome the secretary back today. This is her first times since being confirmed. I want to thank you for appearing before us today to discuss the reauthorization. We are working hard on a bipartisan basis to produce a bill hopefully during this work. How and we appreciate the administrations engagement. Already this year the committee has held hearings on a range of topics underpinning the effort including safety, drone policy, aircraft certification, consumer concerns and infrastructure financing. One of the key issues we have not yet focused on but has been discussed over the last two years and occurs in other parts of the world is whether the United States should separate the air traffic fund from the faa and create a nongovernmental notforprofit corporation to do the job. T the faa runs a safe operation that outside auditors have teamed up a performance on delivering safety and efficiency upgrades prompting a debate as to the best path forward to realize the benefits. The president used his bully pulpit to join the significant reform and challenged congress, his administration and aviationo stakeholders to take action to improve air Traffic Control system. It is hard to ignore the studies and reviews to document the flaws of the current structure. Im looking forward to a robust discussion today on the meritswi of the proposal as well as ways the administration will seek too address concerns especiallyle those in the perspective. While the reform is garnering much of the attention this week, there are plenty of other important issues that require the consideration of the committee. The department administers several programs includingng essential air Service Program and is responsible for Consumer Protection oversight for the aviation industry. Last month the subcommittee chairman and Ranking Member cantwell held a hearing on consumer issues and im i interested to hear directly one what steps the department has taken to address these matters. In addition as we craft our biln we will continue to focus on certification Reform Committee integration of drones into the airspace from airportt infrastructure development, aviation safety and air service. There is a lot of work to be done and i look forward to working with the administration and my colleagues through the process. With that i would reiterate my thanks to the secretary for secr being here and turn to the s Ranking Member for his statement. Thank you mr. Chairman and the committee for the way that it is so interested in the subject and with which we dispatched the subject matter last year in an exceptionally bipartisan way and almostsecr unanimous. Madame secretary, welcome. The current extension set tose expire at the end of september. I am hopeful that we are going to have a bipartisan the reauthorization bill ready to go in the coming week is. And i expressed my preference just a few minutes ago a bill somewhere in the range of five years to give certainty over time that you have the authorization with which you need to execute the executive branch of government. Pa i would remind the committee that we passed the oneyear extension with a lot of stuff and it. 95 to three in the senate. And at the time the chair man and i focused on areas of agreement that resulted in legislation that addressed the safe integration of drones and the National Airspace, significant reform to the faa certification process and broad ranging consumer issues. Ld this was a win for the stakeholders and traveling public which was reflected in that overwhelming vote. Any further progress on the bill was supported in the house by the proposal of privatization of air Traffic Control. So we now operate on a oneyear bill with a new looming deadline. Madame secretary, i understand that you will present the administrations support for the to an independent entity that a airlines. My views on this matter i have a already shared with you are the same as i express rather vigorously last year when the subject was up for debate because we have the safest air Traffic Control system in the world. Why would we risk that by handing over to him on proven and untested entity and why give away billions of dollars in government assets to an entity that will be governed in large part by the airlines . Ll even some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, which isnt so much applicable to this committee as it is to the full senate havent rallied behind the proposal because they understand the potential harm to general aviation as well asnd small and Rural Communities and a fundamental breakup of the faa cannot advance when there is such Strong Division among there aviations recorders and iner congress so this entire discussion over thets from privatization distracts from legitimate matters that must be addressed by the congress on the part of the reauthorization. Now it is no secret that the traveling public is frustrated m and i want to grant with the chair man said about this matter. There are ways we can be more efficient. We are at the point of handing s over a motive for communication over radar to the gps satellitet system. Back as i understand its going to occur in about three years whereas the remaining implementation over the entire next generation is going to be over a dozen years. That can certainly be made more efficient and effective and indeed it will save time and fuel and funny for the traveling public as well as the airlines if you can go from point a to cf instead of having to go on the road because of a radio beacon from a to b. To c. And you can cut off the part with the beam line straight to yourr destination than it saves a lot of time, fuel and money. Thats the point of nexgen plus having Situational Awareness in the cockpit so that you know at all times because you have a much improved Communication System you know what other traffic is around you. At the same time, the traveling public is frustrated. Look what we are seeing every day. They cant check their bags onboard flights with the increasingly shrinking sizes of overbooked seats without paying fees so one of the airlines is ordering a whole new set of boeing 730 sevens and instead of 31 inches between the seats, they are going to get it to 29 inches because they are going to put in this new 737 and additional 12 seats with the same amount of having space. Frut passengers are expressing their frustration. They are frustrated that the airlines wilmots designed a website that clearly communicate the fees and policies. They are frustrated that theesut failing airline it systems result in canceled and delayed flights for days on end, and i see a lot of members with interested expressions on their faces because it has happened to us as well. Thats why this years faa reauthorization legislation must once again include strong Consumer Protection to address the growing frustrations. After all if the airlines cannot even manage their own it systems, you can imagine if you took and put all of that over into air Traffic Control thatso, doesnt give us a very good result. If so, whats the deal with the real problems like the way passengers are treated as w valuable customers which the airlines obviously want to do. Lets not go around trying to find a solution in search of a problem that isnt a problem. Wo bipartisan lon longterm and i d say five year comprehensive reauthorization bill and lets try to do it and show that actually in this congress, we can get something done and passed in a bipartisan way so as usual madame secretary, all of us look forward to working with an excellent Public Servant we appreciate that very much. Oo thats a lot to chew on, so we look forward to hearing from you and if you would proceed with your remarks and then we will open up to the panel for questions. So once again, thank you for being here. Chair man, Ranking Member nelson and members of theh committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before the committee on the future of the federal Aviation Administration and the reauthorization legislation. You know, nearly a century has passed since the federalal government began regulating the nations airspace. We have come a long way since the Transcontinental Airway system for the 1920s and its flying with light towers and huge concrete arrows painted yellow. In the decades since, the progression of the president ial initiatives has resulted in the air Transportation System we know today and alters the Regulatory Framework along the way sometimes quite dramatically. To keep up with a folding than technology, new regulatory entities were created, and old ones were restructured to make more efficient use of the nations airspace and to improve aviation safety. H we can all take pride in the tremendous gains that have been achieved. But as you know the pace of technological change has increased dramatically over the past several decades. At the same time, the traditional model of Government Procurement and budgeting is making it more and more difficult to keep up. Air Traffic Control is a perfecm example. Despite billions of dollars of taxpayer investment over severai decades, the implementation of stateoftheart air Traffic Control technology is not where it needs to be. So, this administration has j taken a bold step and joined many of our counterparts worldwide by separating air Traffic Control operations from the safety oversight function os the faa. This administrations proposal will create a separate,count nongovernmental, nonprofit cooperative to operate thehe countrys air Traffic Control system. The new entity will be a fully capitalized financially selfsustaining entity funded by users of its services, all reve surplus revenues would be reinvested back into the system. T accumulate surpluses. Mindful that the key to any organizations success is the employees, the administrations proposal poses that the new in ty honor existing labor agreements and that employeesrance fer from the faa to be kept whole in terms of pay and benefits, although, they would no longer be federal employees. These reforms will accelerate the deploy of new air Traffic Control technology that is so critical to managing the National Airspace with more precision, thereby enhancing safety, passengers will benefit because these reforms will speed up the delivery of new technology that will delay, that will reduce, delays and congestion. Air Traffic Controllers will benefit because the reforms will ensure they have the most uptodate tools and technology. I want to single out, thank the dedicated professionals, who are, indeed, the best in the world. They are true heros, keeping the flying public safe every day. And taxpayers will benefit because the system will be fully financed with user fees. And let me mention again, that 100 of the surplus will be able to be reinvested back into the system. We also believe the positioned new in ty is necessary to acome adult the expected dramatic increase in passenger traffic over the next decade. And to integrate new entrant has to the airspace such as Unmanned Aircraft systems and commerce space operations. My written testimony contains more detailed information on the proposal and of course legislative language to be submitted will contain many more details. It is worth noting that over the past 20 years, more than 60 countries have successfully managed similar atc, air Traffic Control reform efforts. Each country is different, we recognize that. We also recognize that the u. S. National airspace is the biggest and most complex in the world. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be gleamed from the experience of other countries and we need to embrace transformational reform. Innovation, and the ability to change with changing times is one of the hall marks of our country and part of our aviation history. The proposed reforms will ensure that remains the worlds ladder in aviation Going Forward into the future and this is an industry that we pioneered, so thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I will be happy to take any questions that you may have. Thank you, madam secretary. As i mentioned in the owing statement. There have been many concerns raised regarding the recent proposals for atc reform and the impact on Small Community air service. I was glad to see that the principles announce by the president this week underscore the need to maintain access and services for Rural Communities and my question is how does the vision, this proposal for a new atc entity ensuring that there are such safeguards in place for Rural America. The administrations proposal will enhance safety and improve access and also increase efficiency. All of these features will help make the system better, as we have already heard, the congestions and delays that we are seeing in our airspace can be alleviated by different government structure, so tardiness with which were implementing technological advances can be addressed through taking this air Traffic Control and entity out of bureaucratic Government Procurement rules and we have the best and the safest system in the world. We want to maintain that. To enable the system, in the future to maintain the supremacy. Weed that he to have much needed technol low cag call advances. We need to have technological advances. We need to have a different way for the air Traffic Control system to be able to space airplane, for example, and on the rural front, i am very concerned about access for Rural America. Currently, the rural areas are most hurt buy the status quo. In terms of low traffic towers, air Traffic Control tower, many of which are the first to be cut in any budget cutbackses so Rural America, if prit accesses to Rural America, would actually be enhanced the air Traffic Control system would be taken out of the bureaucratic government and procurement processes. Well, yeah, i guess the only thing i would add is you would understand and look at the composition and represent rural states that are with a lot of geography. Not a lot of people in smaller airports and communities where gen rave i have a is is important. I, look you shall i think, share a concern that rural areas be treated fairly and there would be safeguards put in police and i guess pacifically my question was as to what safeguards in the administrations proposal, in what ways would they go about in shoring the rural areas would have access and that access to the nations air system would be affordable. And, so if it, if you have, hean, you know, at this point, you know, since there is no legislation specifically to look at, and sort of gain that out. That is something, obviously, a lot of this committee would be interested in knowing about. There were editorials in yesterdays washington post, several other pap ares that echoed the president s call to spin out the atc function are the faa anothe basic consince has been around for listening to emand enjoyed support by democrat and republicans at various times. What would you say, for instance, to those who argue that next gen is working out fine, that reforming the atcs system will actually slowdown the modernization process . Well, we respectfully disagree. Men and women who work on next gen are doing their very, very best. We do not want to criticize them. The next gen effort has been going on for quite awhile and it has expended billions of dollars. Were still facing many, many delay, procurement issues that existed decades ago. I was the deputy secretary in 1989 and coming back, into the department in 2017, i am hearing the same arguments, the same descriptions of the problem as i did then. The row scurment issues are real. We need to make sure that the hardworking men and women who man our air Traffic Control system have the latest technology. Rooting now the air Traffic Control system is operating from vacuum tubes and paper strips at an age where we have Digital Technology available, so we need to, again, equip our, um, tremendous air Traffic Controllers for the best tools they have going to the future. Senator nelson . Thank you. Haddam secretary madam secretary. We will have a a disagreement on this. And, and respect you, as you go about your duties, i would point out that one o one of the reasor the delays on the next gen implementation is lack of money. And lack of money also gets in the way, for example, a lot of rural airports are covered by contract towers, they are not faa. And we went through that drill a couple of years ago, and had to, had to really get with it because some of those contract towers were being cut out simply as savings. A lot of the rural airports that dont have them now would lake to have contract towers, but again, a function of money. I dont think that when you compare that to the organization of the implementation that that is the reason why you suddenly turn all of the government assets over to a private in ty. That is my opinion and we will certainly in the crucial of debate and amendments proceed and see where it comes. I want to, i want to give most of my time to the other members because, it is prettile known where i am, but before