as best we can the safety of the public. there is no future of aviation and aerospace in kansas or elsewhere if citizens of the country and around the globe are not feeling safe and secure to fly. the american people deserve nothing less than the most efficient aviation system in the world. our bill provides critical safety enhancements, grows america's aviation workforce, invests in infrastructure and airports in urban and rural communities, sets of clear priorities for advancing innovation solutions, improves the flying public's travel experience and ensures a healthy general aviation sector for years to come. again i think my colleagues on the committee for working to accomplish this moment and i look forward to the boat that takes place a little later today and i encourage my colleagues to work hard to see that we get this completed in the next few days. mr. chairman, mr. president, i yield the floor.

>> i come to the floor today in support of the reauthorization act of 2024. this has been a truly bipartisan, bicameral endeavor and that is how it should be. it's taken longer than we hoped but the final product is worth it. the bill will empower to address the aviation system safety crisis, make the aviation system more accessible for passengers with disabilities, provide ehistoric investments to enhane the capacity to recruit and train the next generation of aviation workers and do so without lowering, weakening or watering down the safety system including pilot qualification standards. there are many important provisions in this bill, but i want to highlight just a few today.fo first and foremost this bill takes important steps to address critical challenges facing the aviation system. during thehe pandemic, there wee a critical r experience from the

aviation workforce, both in the federal agencies like the faa and ntsb as well as the aviation sector. the post air travel put a huge strain on the system and stretched the workforce then. near misses and close calls became so frequent that they were forced to convene a safety ,summit. despite this, the close calls keep happening over and over and over again. just last week in air flight had to avoid taking off when four other planes were crossing at the same time. the week before that a southwest jet crossed right as the jetblue flight was starting its takeoff roll. the need for congress to act is urgent and this bill takes importantak steps to address the safety and critical challenges. importantly the bill also preserves an important pillar of the safety system the 1500 hour

rule for the training. as both a commercial and private pilot i know how critical the rural experience is in the cockpit and that's why i worked so hard to make sure that our bill left the 1500 hour rule intact. air traffic controllersff and surface detection is a key component of the faa reauthorization bill. also. eour legislation will give a much-needed boost to air traffic controller workforce. coming out of the pandemic or air traffic facilities are understaffed and controllers are overworked. last year, only three of 313 facilities nationwide had enough

to meet the targets while controllers are working 60 hours a week to keep up this is dangerous. of these are highly stressful safety critical jobs under the best of circumstances. growing this workforce is a safety imperative end of this bill takeser aggressive steps to do so requiring the faa to finally update their standards to account for the real world conditions. federal regulations require that in the event of an emergency, passengers can evacuate an

aircraft within 90 seconds. however, recent in person evacuation simulations use only able-bodied adults under the age of 60 in groups of just 60 on a plane with no carry-on baggage and nobody over or under the age of 18. on a typical 737 you see more than twice that number of passengers. i think it is safe to say you also probably see a couple of backpacks, may be 100 backpacks and probably some senior citizens, children and passengers with disabilities. all these folks t were left outf the latest simulation. so the fact is we don't actually know if an aircraft can be evacuated in 90 seconds in real-world conditions and that is what is so dangerous. it took more than twice thatre long to evacuate, three minutes and in january when a japan airline managed to successfully evacuate 400 people from a burning 350 it took closer to 18

minutes from the point of impact and overall five minutes from when the plane stopped moving. in 2016 it took more than 17 minutes to evacuate a 767 at o'hare after the plane came to a ostop, short of the 92nd threshold. carry-on bags slow that down and since then ntsb has recommended they take a closer look at this issue. the bill before us today includes a provision senator baldwin and i champion to require the faa to finally do just that, along with mandating the agency to consider other real-world conditions like the presence of children, seniors and passengers with disabilities. the bill will also make progress in transforming commercial air travel to be safer and more accessible for passengers with disabilities. i was proud and honored to work with individuals and organizations in the disability community with drafting this portion of legislation. and while we still have a long way to go to ensure equal access for millions of people with

disabilities when flying, our reauthorization act would be one of the most significant steps taken towards improving air traffic with the disability community. our bill has a years long effort by my colleague senator baldwin and i would like to thank her for her leadership on the carrier access amendment act which has been a priority of the community for years. today i am happy to say that several important provisions from that bill are included in this. today's bill includes a program to update airports to make them hemore accessible to passengers with disabilities. two bipartisan bicameral bills are also included. the mobility on board improves lives and empower all act or mobile act which i worked on with senator thune and representatives into the prioritizing accountability for aviation consumers act which i worked on with senator fischer

and w representative cohen and brian fitzpatrick. i want to thank my colleagues across the aisle and in the house for working with me to show that even in this divisive political moment, we can and we must still legislate in a bipartisan fashion on issues that impact americans throughout every inch of this country in states that are both red and blue. this bill will also help grow the next generation of pilots, aviation mechanics and aviation manufacturing technical workers by expanding the aviation workforce development grant program. this is critical to meet future demands which is expected to grow tremendously. the faa estimates that 696 million mainline employments we saw in 2030 will grow to more than 1.1 trillion by 2044. i want to thank senators moran, klobuchar, thune, kelly, fisher and cavanaugh for working with me to secure the highest level ofwo investment for these grants

and give a special thanks to senator moran who has been suchs a pleasure to work with and also to my colleagues in the housing especially to our chairwoman of the committee who has been so generous in working with me as a subcommittee chair. this initiative may be new in its short history it's already proven popular with educational training institutions with demand for training grants. our bill will fix this imbalance by strengthening the capacity and capabilities of the aviation education andng training organizations with the goal of recruiting and preparing the next generations of american aviation workers. i want to say a brief word about bowing a company with a proud heritage in american aviation. this bill doesn't fully address the issues that have come to light since a door plug flew out of an alaska airline flight mid january of this year. congress must look more cloly