Sullivan claims Biden hired air traffic controllers with no experience
When he speaks to his friends on Fox News, Sen. Dan Sullivan tries to make himself into the biggest Trump supporter of all time, mixing overblown praise for Trump with obligatory complaints about Joe Biden.
On Friday, he spoke about a Trump press conference dealing with air traffic safety as if it was the most wondrous event since the conclave.
Sullivan talked as if all the problems with the FAA began with the Biden administration, not decades ago, and that Trump is the guy to fix them—and do it fast.
“I want to begin by just thanking President Trump and Secretary (Sean) Duffy. They showed tremendous leadership yesterday in that press conference, mentioning that we need historic bold reforms. This is something I’ve been calling for, John, for a number of years,” Sullivan told John Roberts about the press conference.
“But then laying out in detail what we need. This antiquated system. By the way the Biden administration and Secretary Buttigieg did not focus on this at all. And then very importantly you saw it in this press conference, bringing in all the stakeholders—the unions, our FAA and ATC (air traffic control) employees, industry, lawmakers—that takes leadership as well,” he said.
“So we are off to a really good start. This would be historic, very important reform. And here’s the bottom line. We need to keep our aviation system the safest in the world. And it is creaking. It is falling apart. And we need dramatic, top to bottom reforms. And that’s what the secretary laid out yesterday. And again that’s President Trump and the secretary driving this reform that we really need. And I think Congress is ready to act,” said Sullivan.
In another Fox presentation, Sullivan claimed that the Biden administration was hiring air traffic controllers with no experience: "I watched this: Hiring people for the FAA in terms of air traffic controllers is competitive. It requires real schooling. It requires high performance. And the Biden team came in, and I guess in the name of diversity . . . they started taking people off the street literally with no background in any of this. We’ve got to get back to the rigorous FAA standards," he said.
When Sullivan gets on Fox he gives the interviewers, Trump and the rest of the audience exactly what they want, even if he invents and exaggerates.
If you guessed that the truth about air traffic control is far more complicated than Sullivan claims, you’re right.
NPR reports that “Under the Biden administration, Buttigieg asked Congress to provide more funding to hire thousands of new air traffic controllers. House Republicans blocked that effort.”
As the Wall Street Journal put it, “America’s air traffic control system has been troubled for years, the culmination of years of anemic funding, archaic technology and staffing problems.”
“Last September, the Biden administration asked Congress for $8 billion in additional funding over five years to make improvements, including replacing air traffic control facilities and modernizing radar systems. Lawmakers didn’t act on the request—the latest chapter in a years long battle between aviation officials and politicians over how to improve air safety. A House spending bill this year has allocated $12.5 billion for upgrades,” the newspaper said.
Here is a Brookings Institution report that goes into the federal government’s failures going back decades and how special interests blocked modernization.
Sullivan is on the Senate committee that oversees aviation security, so perhaps he should raise his hand and accept some of the responsibility.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Here is a Government Accountability Office report from last September about glaring problems.
In his press release, Duffy claimed the Trump administration will “build a brand new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system that will be the envy of the world.”
One Alaska specific detail in the plan is to add 174 new weather stations.
The overhaul proposed by Duffy would cost tens of billions and he is asking for the money in advance. Holding a press conference is the easy part.
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