efforts. for example, in an effort to boost the aviation work force and provide more opportunities for america's veterans, this legislation makes it easier for military service members to transition to civil aviation careers. this comprehensive and bipartisan bill bolsters the f.a.a. at a time when the agency needs support. the aviation system is more strained than ever. >> millions of americans travel every single day. millions of americans depend on this sector to earn their livelihood. the u.s. aviation sector is the gold standard of safety and i'm proud of the improvements and reforms made this this bill and look forward to working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to advance this bill to final passage. thank you.

and i yield the floor. >> mr. president, we come to the floor, my colleagues have already been out here today. it's a great day for aviation because we have a product before the united states senate and members will be out to vote to move forward on consideration of this important aviation safety legislation. as my colleagues have already said this is a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on f.a.a. authorization. it's important to reauthorize both the federal aviation administration and the national transportation safety board for another five years. we are not only giving them direction and resources to improve safety, but we're asking them to keep up-to-date on the implementation of the latest technologies that help us do just that. i want to thank my colleague, senator cruz, just on the senate floor for helping to negotiate this through the senate commercial committee and chairman graves and larson from

my state to their dedication producing this bipartisan, bicameral legislation and senators duckworth and moran who share the subcommittee in the aviation area for their important contributions to this legislation. i also want to thank president biden, secretary buttigieg, administrator whitaker for helping us on all of the input as we move forward on this legislation. certainly want to thank senators schumer, and thune and duckworth and sinema who helped to negotiate key pieces of this, as relates to pilot saving and training and i definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, want to thank the very hard work of our committee majority staff and the committee minority staff for working diligently upon this important legislation. i can't tell you how important it is at this point in time for us to show that we are paying attention to these issues.

over the last 12 months, several incidents, including a door plug blowout, had a string of close calls at airport have made the public question where we are with aviation safety. we need to show them that we are asking for, implementing and holding accountable the f.a.a. to a gold standard for safety. and these incidents underscore why we need a strong authorization bill and why we need to implement safety improvement. why we need to invest in a safety work force at the f.a.a. why we need strong, consumer laws on the books, that give consumers a right to a refund. the f.a.a. authorization bill does all those things. it provides the direction, it provides the resources, it helps us build that aviation work force and it helps us implement safety technology that will be part of the next gen system and improve aviation

and airport infrastructure nationwide. some of my colleagues may think, well, f.a.a., okay. it's an aviation bill. but what is behind this? aviation contributes 5% of our gdp. that's 1.9 trillion of economic activity and 11 million jobs. getting this right is paramount. i think that some people look at what happened during covid, everybody has work force shortages, everybody has problems. the work force everywhere, but when you have a work force problem in aviation, it means you don't have the highest standards for safety, that is why we have to pass this legislation. our bill gives the aviation work force the tools and the platform they need. it's talking about machinists, about engineers, about mechanics, about pilots, about flight attendants, about

baggage handlers, maintenance workers, the people who are really part of the backbone of an aviation economy. it is simple, this bipartisan bill puts safety first. it says we are authorizing over 100 billion dollars so that the f.a.a. does meet that gold standard. we also are including a robust reauthorization of the national transportation safety board. this organization has and needs to do its job with the resources to hire investigators, construct thorough investigations and produce the highest level of critical analysis to why, why we've had safety accidents. the n.t.s.b. needs to have the critical funding to carry out its important mission like investigating alaska airline flight 1282 and the train

derailment of the east palestine. these are important missions that help inform us what is wrong with our systems and how they should be improved. unless we have those inspections at n.t.s.b. and we've lost some of them lately and some have retired, we need to continue to have these most critical investigators. this also funds the key safety improvements of our system. it requires new and manufactured commercial aircraft to be equipped, as my colleagues have mentioned, with a 25-hour cockpit voice recorder. the standard today is just two hours. and what unfortunately happened in the alaska air door plug issue is that in those short two hours, where people were in the aftermath of the confusion, that two hours was overridden. now we're asking the national transportation safety board to investigate without the most

critical information that would have told us exactly what was happening in the cockpit at that time, the voice recorder. this legislation is critical to have a mandate and never to have that overridden in this time period so we have enough time to investigate. the n.t.s.b. also will strengthen its board and its work force and investigates more than 2600 accidents every year, however, it has had the same number of people and staff for decades and that's why those 33 more investigators will be better equipped and better able to understand emerging technology. i want to thank senator klobuchar for her leadership. she in her provision on runway traffic and landing safety technology is helping us to reduce collisions or near misses at airports. this invests in deploying this

technology that n.t.s.b. accurately assessed, has been saving lives at various airports and says it needs to be more deployed across the entire country. these critical airport technologies will require all medium and large hub airports to implement this within the next few years. building on the aircraft certification and accountability act, the bill that we passed in the aftermath of the two boeing mac crashes, this makes reform in aircraft certification to assure that planes we fly meet the highest standards of the f.a.a. to further the reform certification, we require the f.a.a. provide public notice and opportunity to comment on significant aviation product design changes. a lot of the confusion in the incidents of the m-cast system, people didn't know or didn't

understand. this provision ensures that transparency for those proposed exemptions, for the current airworthiness standards. it puts the flying public and unfortunately, families who have been impacted, more in the driver's seat of understanding what changes are being proposed to airplane certification. it also requires the recurrent training and stronger standards for manufacturing representatives who act on behalf of the federal aviation administration as unit members to understand the manufacturing process. this includes strengthening the members understandings of what are the international understandings of the safety management system, which is the gold standard for safety, and a key recommendation of the expert review panel's report. to ensure safety concerns,

also, this legislation includes an analysis of what are called service difficulty reports, and regular updates to congress. service difficulty reports are information filed by pilots every day after a flight that tells somebody, this happened in our carrier, this incident happened and we are strengthening the requirement for the f.a.a. to analyze that information early and frequently and give congress updates on this. again, something requested by the families of the max aircraft incident. additionally, we authorized 66.7 billion dollars to boost the f.a.a.'s staff and program and resources to strengthen the oversight of the manufacturing process. this is critical in providing what are called safety inspectors by the f.a.a. these are people we hire and train at the f.a.a.

they go to a community college, they take a safety course, and they are required to understand what are the obligations of a manufacturer to implement the code that the f.a.a. has. these air traffic-- these individuals from the f.a.a. have-- we need a more aggressive investment in them. their training, their skilling, their ability to stay current on the latest and greatest technology. to better support the f.a.a.'s oversight. the agency is required to revise and implement and update these safety inspector models so that we can increase the responsibilities. in 2021, the inspector general-- i'm sorry, the department of transportation inspector highlighted that staffing shortages by the f.a.a. flight standard and certification management district offices

were critical. mr. chairman, i just-- mr. president, i want to take a moment to give my condolences to the family of ian waun. ian waun was one of these people who helped to understand the certification process at what is called the seattle office. that's the office of the f.a.a. that oversees certification. we need people to standard up like ian and said that certification is only good when the f.a.a. says it's good. and that's the kind of people we need this this system. and we recently lost ian to cancer, but we'll remember his dedication to getting aviation right. the professional aviation safety specialist path representing the f.a.a. safety employees estimates that the f.a.a. is currently experience ago 20% shortage of safety inspectors. so implementing a revised model helps us better capture the

inspector workload, what it takes to ensure the next generation of technology is fully understood and to make sure that operators and manufacturers are supplying with the law. i also want to thank senator shotts for his helicopter safety provision. many people know how many people travel to the state of hawaii to travel on air tours and around those beautiful islands, but that important safety responsibility has to be clear to those independent operators that they are going to meet the highest standards when moving the public around. another safety provision when in the bill by senators, cap capito, welch, and creating a more level playing field. unfortunately, as aircraft maintenance went overseas and the f.a.a. didn't have enough inspectors where did they not inspect the maintenance and

repair of aircraft? in those oversea repair stations, but now, we're taking away any incentive for someone to go do that overseas because the f.a.a. will be there, will inspect, and make sure that we're meeting the standards. so this will help us bring this back to the united states. there are nearly 1,000 f.a.a. certified operating outside of the united states and we have to make sure that they are properly regulated. we're also in this legislation making sure that the f.a.a. work force is well-trained, and advised to help the f.a.a. it helps recruit skilled technical and expert staff to ensure that they don't take shortcuts and do more hiring to quickly fill these positions

and one of the most important aspects of the legislation is our most pressing work force problem and that is the shortage of over 3,000 air traffic controllers. everyone knows that these air traffic controllers are what guide us every day to the safety of our destinations. this bill recognizes that we have short-changed that investment with air traffic controllers sometimes working as much as six days a week. we need a work force that's going to continue to tackle these challenges and this bill makes the investment so that happens. we've seen the f.a.a. fall short of goals before in work force training, but this staffing model and the f.a.a. staffing committed to in this bill will help us fill that gap. i want to thank senators klobuchar, duckworth, warnock,

moran, thune, peters and kelly for their work force development grant program in this legislation. it helps us grow pilots, mechanics, engineers and technical work force and streamline the job pathway for veterans who have real skill in the military and can more easily help us fill these aviation roles. our bill requires the gao who also study airport workers standards, a step toward getting our baggage and our cleaners to pay and benefits they deserve. and this bill also does something for the first time for consumers, it says that you deserve a refund after a three-hour delay. even if you have a nonrefundable ticket. you also deserve a refund for an international flight if it's been delayed for six hours. and you can get that refund

immediately by talking to the carrier or if you decide you just don't even want to be on the delayed flight, you can get a refund. i want to thank senators markey and vance for a mandate in the bill that says families get to sit together and you can't charge us more. if the airlines break these rules, guess what happens? the d.o.t. assistant secretary is authorized to issue penalties up to $75,000 for fines and penalties to have a strong deterrent care. i also want to thank subcommittee chair duckworth for her leadership in making sure airlines better accommodate passengers with disabilities. it's because of her unbelievable advocacy here that we're going to reduce the damage that's done to wheelchairs and to the passengers who have to make these flights for their own needs and certainly, thanks,

senator duckworth, as one of our national heroes and veterans for her unbelievable pilot expertise for helping us. and commended for hard work and programs for small and rural communities who need important lifelines to have aviation in their communities and we authorized a record $1.7 billion for that program. and overall, airport infrastructure is getting a big boost, too. thank you to senators peters and baldwin and warnock for championing and making sure airports exposed to harmful chemicals that are harmful to all of us and i want to thank senators hickenlooper who was chairing providing today, senator rosen, moran, young, wicker that usher in the next generation of technology for aviation, not just drones and air mobility aircraft, but also, the research and development necessary to see

the electric and hydrogen powered aircraft industry take off in the future. companies like zero, avia in my state or universal hydrogen are leading the way with the next generation of strategies that will help us make these technologies a reality. i just will say, too, that this legislation gives the f.a.a. the direction to provide safe operating standards for advanced air mobility and safety for the 2028 olympics coming soon in los angeles. and i also thank senators thune and warner for their legislation creating a pathway for drones to operate beyond the visual line of sight which we've also included in this bill and to make sure senator rosen's hard work on the legislation for grants and states to improve, the u.s.

manufacturing drones inspect and repair critical infrastructure. so, my colleagues can see that this legislation is full of safety improvements. it helps address a huge part of our u.s. economy. it helps make the aviation system today work better and guarantee that we are going to continue to focus on this for the future. so, i thank all of my colleagues. i urge them to support the motion to move forward on this legislation that we will be taking shortly, and get this to the house before the may 10th deadline. it is great bipartisan work, bicameral work, but most importantly, it's safety improvement for our aviation system. i thank the president and i yield the floor. >> ♪♪ . >> c-span shop.org is c-span's

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senate continues for the day. lawmakers vote whether to official work as a five-year aviation administration programs bill. mo are than 80 amendments have been filed to the legislation, including policy riders unrelated to aviation. current f.a.a. programs expire on may 10th. you're watching c-span2. ... the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.