America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill which is before the Senate and which we have been debating over the last week. Ensuring that our great Nation--States such as Colorado and Alaska that have important aviation industries--has a healthy and safe general aviation community and comprehensive aviation infrastructure is exactly the type of issue this Congress needs to be working on and the type that has been a top priority in previous Congresses.

In my State, aviation has a very rich history and is an incredibly important driver of our economy but also an important element of connecting the entire State. Many aspects of our lives in Alaska rely on commercial and general aviation. Living in a State of such enormous scale with numerous remote communities gives Alaskans a very deep appreciation for air travel, which in many cases provides the only means for transportation for many residents.

One of the things that is very much an honor being in the U.S. Senate is how different Senators come and describe life in their States so all Americans have a better understanding of how the entire country is knitted together, how we work together, but what unique challenges different States have.

For more than 100 communities in Alaska--including regional centers such as Bethel, Nome, Barrow, and Kotzebue--aviation is the only means of getting in or out of those communities since there are no roads. Most States don't understand that. There are no roads, no ferry service, so aviation is critical. Alaska is unique in its dependence on aviation, and we have a very busy, what we call highway of the skies. There are more pilots per capita in my State than any other State in the country. So that means everything from mail, to groceries, to baby diapers has to be flown in by plane to many communities. If someone gets sick and needs to see a doctor, oftentimes that can only be done by air. There are over 400 general aviation airports across Alaska, 250 of which are owned and operated by the State of Alaska, and that doesn't include hundreds of heliports that support mining, timber, the oil and gas industry, and others.

General aviation and aviation infrastructure are critical components of our economy and our quality of life in our State, in Alaska. It is fundamental in terms of connecting people and communities and promoting and sustaining economic development. Indeed, estimates show that the general aviation community contributes over $1 billion a year in economic activity to the State of Alaska's economy and supports over 47,000 jobs; that is 1 in 10 jobs in the entire State.

This is a very important bill. It is an important bill for the State of Alaska, but it is also an important bill for the United States of America. The FAA reauthorization bill will expire in July, and it is important to avoid the uncertainty of more short-term extensions by passing the authorization bill we have had on the floor of the Senate over the last week.

I thank Chairman Thune and Ranking Member Nelson for all the work they have been doing night and day, really for months on this important bipartisan bill. So far the process has been a model of how the Senate should work.

Our friends in the media love to write the stories about nothing working in the U.S. Senate. I don't think so. There are a lot of important bills moving--the highway bill, the Education bill, human trafficking. Now we are looking at a bipartisan way to address a very important bill for the country; that is aviation, that is aviation infrastructure, and that is aviation security.

Let me talk about some of the substance more broadly for the country and why this bill is so important.

One aspect of the bill is the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2. Building off the success of the initial Pilot's Bill of Rights, this provision continues to make essential reforms for pilots--mostly general aviation pilots who are so important to my State--streamlining an overly burdensome medical certification process, increasing transparency and access to additional information for pilots in all the different aspects of their requirements as to being pilots in the general aviation community. There are provisions that also balance and make essential inroads toward rebalancing the relationship between the FAA and general aviation pilots.

One thing this Senate bill does not do--there has been a discussion over in the House--is it does not transfer the air traffic control services that are so important to many of our States--particularly rural States--to a private corporation.

This bill also, very importantly, strengthens safety for pilots and passengers across the country. You can't pick up the news and not see how important this issue is. From the terror attacks in Brussels, at the airport there, to the Russian flight out of Egypt that went down because of a suspected ISIS attack, to instances of criminal behavior even among U.S. airport employees, events around the world have underscored how important the need for stronger security measures for our Nation's air travel is.

What is really important is this is the Senate taking proactive action. This is not a bill on aviation security where we are reacting to some horrible tragedy, God forbid, in terms of aviation security, whether an accident or a terrorist attack at one of our airports. What we have been doing is looking at the challenges in these areas and taking proactive measures so we don't have to react when there is a terrorist attack or an accident.

So these are comprehensive airline security reforms that are some of the most important that have occurred and that we have debated in this body for over a decade. Let me list just a few of them.

The bill includes several measures for the security of passengers by improving airport employee vetting to ensure that potentially dangerous individuals don't have access to secure areas in our airports, expanding the enrollment in the TSA PreCheck Program so passengers move through security lines into more secure areas more quickly--we saw how important that was in Brussels--and enhancing security for international flights bound for the United States.

Overall, this legislation addresses a growing concern in terms of security, including the cyber security threats facing aviation and air navigation systems for our commercial airlines. The bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act does more for passengers and more for security than any bill, at least in the last decade. It is an important bill, it is a good bill for America, and it is a good bill for Alaska. It will advance measures to keep us safer. That is why I am supporting this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to do so as well.

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