The News
There’s a big split in Congress this week, and it’s not the usual fare. Instead, Republicans and Democrats are divided over whether they are about to make a repeat of the January crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport more likely in the annual defense bill.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., are trying to strip out language from the National Defense Authorization Act they say gives the Pentagon too much authority to waive transmission of its aircraft locations around DC.
Leaders see it as too late in the process to alter the must-pass legislation, but this fight isn’t going away. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that the Senate might take up Cantwell and Cruz’s ROTOR Act — a safety response to the crash at DCA — as an amendment to spending bills that the Senate is working on.
Know More
Cruz, Cantwell, and some of their colleagues say the language in the NDAA — specifically Section 373 — allows military aircraft to use inferior technology and avoid transmitting locations of its aircraft. Cantwell said “there’s no reason to have this language in the NDAA unless you’re somebody who wants to continue … letting the military do whatever it wants to do in a congested airspace.”
But you don’t have to look much further than Cruz and Cantwell’s bipartisan effort — and their Monday press conference — to see this issue doesn’t cut neatly across party lines. Instead, it placed leaders of the Armed Services committees at odds with those who regulate transportation safety.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, defended the provision in an interview. “We’re trying to improve – and we are – air safety,” Reed told Semafor, citing language that requires the Defense Department to work with the Transportation Department. He said it was “troubling” to hear criticism of the provision as worsening air safety.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the Senate’s aviation subcommittee, took the exact opposite view: “We can’t jeopardize aviation safety. And I am absolutely appalled that this thing was airdropped in behind closed doors without talking to me.”
The Trump administration is staying out of it, at least publicly. “As a matter of longstanding Department of War policy, we don’t comment on pending or proposed legislation,” an official told Semafor, using the new name that President Donald Trump gave the department.
Senate leaders have hotlined the legislation from Cruz and Cantwell as a potential amendment to a spending package Congress is trying to land this week. If that doesn’t happen, this fight may well extend into January.