Question Whether The Agency Has Explored All Cost Savings Before Punishing Employees And Traveling Public

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Ranking Member John Thune (R-SD) (pictured, left) and House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) (pictured, right)  wrote Thursday to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, questioning if the Department and the FAA have explored all cost saving options to comply with the sequester before taking dramatic steps that will punish FAA employees and the traveling public.

On Tuesday, FAA employees were notified of intended furloughs of up to 11 work days, beginning about April 7th.  The agency has also announced a significant number of closures of air traffic control towers within the cost-effective contract tower program.  Whether the agency considered other cost-saving measures before making these announcements is unclear.  The DOT and FAA continue to rebuff the lawmakers’ requests for specific information about how decisions are being made under the sequester.  Congress has been requesting this information since August of last year, including this previous request from Shuster and Thune.
 
In their letter, Thune and Shuster state, “Since our previous requests for information have gone unanswered, we cannot assume, nor do we believe, that all savings options were explored before the choice was made to furlough employees, close towers, and inconvenience the flying public you are supposed to serve.  While we continue to await your answers to our questions, the FAA has the authority and the flexibility in its budget to use the savings found in these and other areas to pay for air traffic controllers and other personnel and to avoid resorting to furloughs.

"A review of FAA spending over the past several years has exposed several areas ripe for belt-tightening at the FAA.  These areas include, but are not limited to: a yearly travel budget for FAA employees of $179 million; a fleet of 46 aircraft that costs $143 million a year to maintain; a 41 percent, or $3 billion budget increase since 2002, even though domestic flights are down 27 percent from 2000 traffic levels; and clear mismanagement and waste on Air Traffic Control modernization contracts.
 
"Because DOT and FAA have continuously rebuffed our efforts to gain detailed information about your plans for sequester, we are left with more questions than answers," the letter continues. " We know that FAA spends millions of taxpayer dollars to send employees to conferences.  Has all conference spending been eliminated under the sequester?  We know that FAA plans to shut down a significant number of contract towers, even though the contract tower program has continuously proven to be cost effective.  How was this choice made?  Were all other service contracts examined for waste and cost overruns before choosing to make cuts to an economically sound program?"

FMI: http://shuster.house.gov, http://thune.senate.gov