Donald Trump and his Transportation Secretary have not taken any responsibility for the FAA ground stop that continues to cause chaos for air travelers. Instead, the administration has blamed contractors, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and former President Joe Biden.
The big solution that the Trump administration has come up with is to demand $50 billion more from Congress supposedly to perform upgrades on FAA’s systems.
With only 16 days left in the lame-duck session, Congress has not been warm to the administration’s demand for a rush of additional funding.
In fact, the incoming committee and subcommittee chairs in the next Congress are pushing back hard, providing proof that the administration has mismanaged the funds it was already given.
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee Ranking Member James E. Clyburn (D-SC) have released proof of the Trump administration’s mismanagement of funds.
Rep. DeLauro said in a statement:
The cause of this nationwide crisis remains largely unexplained after the performance we witnessed from Secretary Duffy and Secretary Mullin. Instead of laying out the facts, Secretary Duffy commanded the public’s attention to demand a $50 billion ransom without a real plan to deliver. Secretary Duffy and the Federal Aviation Administration have received historical and monumental investments over the last two years, over $12.5 billion of which was provided without meaningful guardrails or accountability requirements and largely remains unspent.
No federal leader should be free to do their work without Congressional oversight. Congress has shown its willingness to modernize the FAA’s systems and support workforce as part of annual bipartisan legislation, but we need a competent partner at the Department of Transportation to carry this out in a sustainable, transparent manner. Right now, it is clear that we lack such a partner.”
The Trump administration has been running wild without oversight for two years, and now they want more money.