Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. FEENSTRA. Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of my amendment No. 27, which gives rural airports in my district the flexibility they need to serve their passengers, maintain their workforce, and remain solvent.

Our local airports in Sioux City, Iowa, Fort Dodge, Iowa, and many other locations connect Iowans to the rest of the country and to the world. We cannot allow government mandates to suffocate our rural communities and threaten the existence of our small airports.

Under current law, rural airports provide the staff they need to keep our passengers safe. Injecting the Federal Government into hiring decisions would only make rural communities harder to reach.

By giving our local airports breathing room to manage their budgets and their operations, they can better hire new employees and keep costs low for passengers.

Born and raised in rural Iowa, I know that our rural airports are important to our economic development across the Midwest.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. FEENSTRA. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close. I urge my colleagues to think through this great amendment. Think about these small airports and the burden that this would project on each of these airports to have a special person that handles just the concerns of things that might happen once every 10 years or whatever it might be.

There are people that are already hired that can handle these situations. Again, these small rural airports cannot be like the large urban airports. It just doesn't work that way.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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