FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Senate tries to use passenger rights provisions to sweeten a $44Billion boondoggle.
Contact: Our Airspace
Director Heather Wolf (917)355-6640
Contact@ourairspace.org
Dec 16 2009 New York-
Essential policy changes needed to protect passenger safety and flyers rights need to be raised immediately as stand alone legislation, not buried in a controversial bill which will waste taxpayer dollars, increase the deficit and erode environmental protections.
Rather than passing much needed stand-alone legislation immediately, Congress chose to embed some critical passenger rights and safety provisions in a massive spending bill which increases discretionary spending to 44 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration(FAA), an agency plagued by mismanagement, cost overruns, while failing to deliver on safety.
This Senate bill (S1451), and its House counterpart (H.R. 915 –passed 277-136) constitute the largest funding increase in the history of the FAA. Fast-tracking the bill does not allow congress the time to write in enough protections to stop fraud, abuse, mismanagement at the FAA nor addresses all of the longstanding safety issues the National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) has raised.
“The Senate bill does include some useful provisions but it is months away from rectifying all longstanding critical safety hazards, and it does not safeguard taxpayer investment,“ said Heather Wolf, Director of Our Airspace, “lawmakers seeking to fast-track the legislation before the new year do so at an extreme disservice to the taxpayer and to the flying public.”
FAA FLIES FAST AND EASY WITH TAXPAYER DOLLARS
The FAA does not adhere to accounting standards according to governmental audits. Their multi-billion dollar high risk project Next Gen runs more than 10 years behind schedule, over budget by billions, and is being implemented without a cost benefit analysis according to a recent OIG audit.
The FAA is also currently under investigation by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation (OIG) over misuse of over 1 billion in Economic Stimulus Package funding supplied to the AIP program, which wins 12.3 Billion with the proposed legislation, a 3-fold increase.
“Now is no time to award FAA with a blank 44 billion dollar check,” says Wolf, “the Senate Finance Committee is rightly hesitant about fast-tracking this bill to the floor for passage before the new year.”
STAND-ALONE LEGISLATION IS NEEDED NOW
FAA must be made to significantly strengthen regulations on aircraft icing, pilot training, pilot and controller fatigue and bird strike. The FAA has been ignoring NTSB scientific findings for many years, even in the face of two recent commercial aviation disasters which were caused in part by the risks clearly outlined by the NTSB. Passengers also need rights. They should also not be held captive for hours or days without food and water on tarmacs. Congress must hold the FAA accountable.
“We urge congress to immediately pass critical safety and passenger rights as stand alone legislation, and stop fast-tracking S.1451 so that Congress can fully rectify many of the longstanding and unacceptable issues at the FAA.” said Wolf.
Read more information about FAA Safety, and the environment at http://www.ourairspace.org
REFERENCES & FURTHER READING BY TOPIC
Senate Bill Cost and overviewNotice of FAA Accounting Audit Failure
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_SN_1451.html
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1451
House Bill (Passed in House mostly partisan)
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h915/show
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=10096&sequence=0&from=6
OIG Audit of subcontractor Relationships
http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/data/pdfdocs/av2002068.pdf
OIG Audit of FAA Accounting
http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/data/pdfdocs/av1998113.pdf
http://www.eaa153.org/Apr07Newsletter.pdf
Governmental Oversight Audit of FAA Safety Failure
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1021/
NTSB Reports on FAA Failure to address longstanding safety
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/aviation.htm
FAA failure on Icing
http://ourairspace.org/Risk-Icing.html
Hidden FAA Safety and Environmental Risks of Next Gen Procedures
http://ourairspace.org/cda.html
1 comment:
This Bill was fast-tracked without debate into law- but not before Senate Leadership tacked on 1500 pages of Health and Education funding adding another 10Billion in spending and passed it to the president with No Name.
By way of subsitution amendment, the bill went from an FAA to a Health and Education Bill.
Due process was not followed in this End Of Summer Fast-tracking of a very controversial law.
Post a Comment