Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford is scheduled to brief the chair and ranking member of the House Transportation Committee next week on how the agency is spending the $12.5 billion that Congress gave it for a “down payment” on what the Trump administration is calling a “brand new air traffic control system,” ranking member Rick Larsen told POLITICO.
Larsen (D-Wash.) said he and Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) are expecting to hear from Bedford about how the effort is progressing and the agency’s updated request for companies’ ideas on how to perform a revamp. Firms must submit pitches by the afternoon of Sept. 21 as it seeks an “integrator” contractor to oversee the project, which DOT Secretary Sean Duffy has said he wants to be completed in the next three to four years.
“Sam and I will be briefed next week and then we’re going to ask him [Bedford] to brief the full committee. So they put out their request for the integrator, and we’re going to review that with the administrator next week,” Larsen told POLITICO.
Larsen said he wants an overview from Bedford “and some general idea of where the buckets of money are going to go.”
