Science panel mulls progress on NextGen flight system

Improving air transportation safety and efficiency should be a top priority for the next president, not just for security and economic reasons, but also for the environment, House Science Chairman Bart Gordon said today.

Comment on this article in The Forum."There are clear signs of distress ... and there needs to be change," Gordon said at a hearing on the status of the next generation air transportation system. "The next president needs to make it a national priority with a sense of urgency that it warrants."

According to GAO, air traffic in the United States is expected to increase to about 100,000 to 150,000 flights each day by 2025, compared to the current level of 50,000 flights. As one effort to improve the air traffic control system, the House passed the FAA Reauthorization Act last September, which includes the Next Generation Air Transportation System initiative aimed at transforming the current radar-based aviation control system into a more automated, satellite-based system at a cost of about $20 billion.

The bill, however, has been hung up in the Senate, and House Science ranking member Ralph Hall expressed frustration that nothing has been done to move the bill forward as the congressional session ends later this month.

Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., expressed doubts about whether the FAA was up to the task in the first place. "I question the ability of the FAA to handle a project of this magnitude," Costello said. His sentiments were echoed by Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., among others, who said that she was "not sure whether the FAA has the ability to deal with the growth" in air traffic in coming years.

Victoria Cox, FAA's senior vice president for NextGen, dismissed those assertions. "It is also important to remember that NextGen is not simply about air traffic capabilities, but fostering improvements in ground infrastructure, aircraft technology, and alternative fuels," Cox said. She said the FAA and NextGen agencies have "been focusing on accelerating the deployment of operational improvements to address the greatest need."

Gordon had harsh comments for the FAA's management process, most notably the fact that the agency downgraded the Joint Planning and Development Office without notifying legislators. Created in 2003, the JPDO brings together a number of agencies in their collective effort to revamp the aviation system, including the Transportation, Defense and Homeland Security departments, NASA and FAA. Hall asked whether there was the possibility of developing an alternative jet fuel source that had less of a carbon footprint, to which Ian Waitz, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, replied there was a potential for biosources to be developed that, unlike ethanol, would not compete with food crops.