Federal Aviation Administration Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, once again we are considering a piecemeal bill to fund just one part of the federal government while ignoring every other priority. Speaker BOEHNER continues to prevent this House from working its will and passing a clean CR that would open the FAA and every other agency in our government. That is undemocratic and, in the face of increasing negative impacts from this government shutdown, unsustainable.

Of course we all want the Federal Aviation Administration to open. But there are many more transportation safety programs that the House Republican leadership is ignoring by failing to bring a clean CR to the Floor. Just this weekend, there was a terrible accident during track work on the DC metro system. But 95 percent of the National Transportation Safety Board's employees are furloughed, so they can't investigate. 94 percent of the Federal Transit Administration's employees are furloughed, preventing them from fully implementing the new safety oversight responsibilities that so many of us worked hard to include in MAP-21. The National Highway Traffic Safety. Administration has had to suspend investigations into safety defects in cars.

We need all of our transportation systems to be safe. Let's vote on a clean CR today and put all federal employees back to work.

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