Reducing Flight Delays Act
Floor Speech
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support the Reducing Flight Delays Act (H.R. 1765) This legislation will allow the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to end furloughs for air traffic controllers created by sequestration and keep our air traffic moving. However, I am frustrated by this bill's narrow, cost-shifting fix that fails to address the underlying problem of sequestration.
In the first three days of this week, over three thousand flights were delayed because of staff furloughs. These delays could increase to several thousand per day and tens of thousands per week without action. While this bill does give the FAA the ability to stop the furloughs, it does not address sequestration's overall cuts to the Agency. Instead, this bill gives the FAA the ability to shift money between accounts, allowing staff furloughs to be prevented only by accepting even deeper cuts in other programs. This cost-shifting will cost us money in the long run, as maintenance and construction costs grow.
Since taking effect in March, sequestration's impact has become clearer. The Department of Education's budget has been cut to FY2004 levels, despite an additional six million children in school. Young children are being forced out of Headstart. Special education funding and assistance to impoverished schools has been cut. Schools serving Native American and military families are facing even greater deficits, because they rely heavily on federal funding. Where is the Congressional outrage for these cuts? Where is the quick legislative action to avert these crises? We should be taking just as decisive action to ensure our children can continue to attend Headstart as we are to keep the planes flying on time.
I opposed the Budget Control Act because of sequestration's deep and indiscriminate cuts. This bill is not enough to address those cuts which are creating harm every single day. While I support this legislation to keep air traffic moving, I urge my Republican colleagues to take immediate action to reverse all of sequestration.
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