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REAUTHORIZATION OF THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY

BOARD

(109–53)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

AVIATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

TRANSPORTATION AND

INFRASTRUCTURE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 8, 2006

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice-Chair

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

GARY G. MILLER, California

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

TED POE, Texas

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

CONNIE MACK, Florida

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JERROLD NADLER, New York

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

BOB FILNER, California

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

(II)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

TED POE, Texas

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York,

Vice-Chair

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

DON YOUNG, Alaska

(Ex Officio)

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia

BOB FILNER, California

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

(Ex Officio)

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS

TESTIMONY

Page

Rosenker, Mark V., Acting Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board . 4

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois .......................................................................... 19

Johnson, Hon. Eddie Bernice, of Texas .................................................................. 21

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 24

Salazar, Hon. John T., of Colorado ........................................................................ 54

PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY THE WITNESS

Rosenker, Mark V .................................................................................................... 26

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Rosenker, Mark V., Acting Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board:

Resposes to questions from Rep. Carnahan ....................................................... 33

Responses to questions from Rep. Millender-McDonald ................................... 40

(1)

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE NATIONAL

TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

AVIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica [chairman of the committee] presiding.

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call this hearing of the

House Aviation Subcommittee to order.

This morning’s hearing will focus on NTSB reauthorization.

Order of business is, we will have opening statements by members.

We have one witness in this hearing this morning, and we will

hear from the witness, and proceed hopefully in an expeditious

manner.

I’ll start with my comments and then will yield to other members. Today we will receive testimony on the National Transportation Safety Board reauthorization proposal. The Board’s current

authorization expires on the 30th of September 2006. The NTSB is

a small but important part of our Federal Government. It has an

annual budget of $76 million and a staff of just around 400 people.

We all know that the NTSB makes critical contributions to our

Nation’s safety each year. In the United States, the three year average commercial aviation accident rate is .017 accidents per

100,000 departures, which means that the accident rate is equivalent to one fatal accident for every 15 million passenger carrying

flights.

It’s an absolutely amazing record by any standard. I believe this

unprecedented aviation safety record is in part due to the outstanding work over the years by hundreds of NTSB professionals, as well

as the Federal Aviation Administration and our aviation industry.

But even with this outstanding safety record in commercial air

transportation, we must continue to work toward making the system even safer, especially as demand and congestion increase.

Since its creation in 1967, the NTSB has investigated more than

124,000 aviation accidents and at least 10,000 accidents in other

transportation modes. As a result of these investigations, the Board

has issued almost 12,000 safety recommendations and over 82 percent of those have been adopted.

The NTSB also serves as the court of appeals for any airman,

mechanic, mariner, whenever certificate action is taken by the FAA

administrator or by the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant.
2

I would also like to point out that last year marked the Board’s

15th anniversary of its ‘‘most wanted list’’ of transportation safety

improvements. I believe this is a tool that has served the public

well. In fact, over the past 15 years, 85 percent of the more than

260 recommendations that have been placed on the list have been

accepted and implemented.

The Board’s three year reauthorization request includes additional funding, additional staff and some statutory changes. The

budget request of $79.6 million is $2.8 million above the fiscal year

2006 level. This increase is related to pay raises, some benefit increases, inflation and a proposal to merge the NTSB’s $2 million

emergency fund into its regular salaries and expense accounts.

The fiscal year 2008 and 2009 authorization levels requested by

the NTSB are based on 475 full time equivalents. I understand the

Board has determined through a human capital forecast conducted

earlier this year that 475 is the minimum number of full time employees needed to effectively and efficiently meet the mission and

support efforts that are anticipated by the Board.

Finally, the NTSB has requested three statutory changes. These

requests pertain to the Board’s contracting authority, its authorization and use of appropriations and payment for the services of the

DOT Inspector General.

We look forward to hearing from the Acting Chairman on these

issues as well as an update on the NTSB Academy and other relevant matters important to our Subcommittee.

I am pleased now to recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Costello.

Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will

enter my full statement into the record, but first let me thank you

for calling the hearing today. I want to welcome our witness here

before us.

As you noted, the NTSB was created during 1966, and its main

mission then and as it remains today is to independently investigate accidents in all transportation modes. In 1974, to further ensure the NTSB would retain its independence, Congress re-established the Board as a totally separate entity distinct from the DOT.

Since its inception, Mr. Chairman, as you noted, the NTSB has

investigated more than 124,000 aviation accidents and over 10,000

surface transportation accidents, making it one of the world’s premier accident investigation agencies.

The NTSB’s recommendations and its vigilance on safety issues

result in improvements in the way we conduct the business of

transportation in all modes. While the NTSB’s work in aviation

gets all the headlines and the attention of the American people,

when a tragedy occurs, it should not overshadow the important

work the Agency performs in pipelines, maritime, rail, truck and

automotive transportation.

To maintain its position as the preeminent transportation investigative agency, the NTSB must have the resources necessary to

handle the increasingly complex accident investigations and also to

adequately train its staff. Mr. Chairman, as you know, the President’s fiscal year 2007 NTSB budget request of $79.6 million provides for 99 fewer full time equivalent staff positions than requested. In order for the Agency to do its job, they must receive
3

adequate funding from the Congress of the United States. I want

to tell you, Mr. Chairman, I have a deep interest in seeing that the

Agency receives an increase in its budget in order to carry out the

mandates that the Congress has given to them.

I look forward to hearing from our witness today about not only

the current status of the Agency but the budget request and the

level of staffing that you feel is important in order to carry out your

mission.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would yield back the balance of my

time.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

Other opening statements? Mr. Duncan?

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I simply want to say that I appreciate the work that NTSB has

done over the years. A lot of people don’t understand what the

NTSB does throughout the course of the year, but their work is

very, very important and I intend to support them with any reasonable request that they make. I think almost everybody on this Subcommittee feels the same way, and thank you for calling this hearing.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Carnahan.

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member

Costello, for holding this hearing about this reauthorization of

NTSB.

The NTSB is charged with the vitally important task of investigating civil aviation and other significant transportation accidents. These investigations provide vital information about the

cause of these incidents and hostile actions that can be taken to

prevent future accidents and their human and economic costs.

The work of this Agency is critical in the ongoing effort to make

all modes of transportation in the U.S. safer. I look forward to the

questions and discussion with the witness, Chairman Rosenker. I

also look forward to working with my colleagues on this reauthorization to ensure that the NTSB has the resources and the reforms

needed to continue to advance the safety in transportation in the

United States.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. Any other opening statements?

Ms. Johnson.

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

thank you and the Ranking Member for holding this important and

timely hearing for the reauthorization of the National Transportation Safety Board.

As the primary agency charged with investigating significant

transportation accidents amongst our various modes of transportation, the NTSB serves as a vital component of our Nation’s transportation system. Since its creation in 1967 as an independent

agency, it has investigated over 130,000 accidents across various

modes of transportation and issued over 12,000 safety recommendations, of which 82 percent have been adopted by the

transportation community. This speaks well for the Board.

Without question, our Nation’s transportation system stands as

one of the safest in the world, thanks in large part to the diligent

efforts of the National Transportation Safety Board. I welcome our
4

witness and I fully support the three areas of concern. I hope that

we will have no difficulty at all in reauthorizing this Board, which

will continue to give us insight into their activities and the activities of which we take our safety alerts from.

Thank you and I yield back.

Mr. MICA. Any additional opening statements? No further additional opening statements.

We will turn to our only panel and our only witness today, who

is Mark Rosenker, who is the Acting Chairman of the National

Transportation Safety Board. Welcome and you are recognized.

TESTIMONY OF MARK V. ROSENKER, ACTING CHAIRMAN,

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD

Mr. ROSENKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the

members for those kind comments on behalf of my entire staff and

my colleagues at the Board.

Good morning, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Costello and

distinguished members of the Aviation Subcommittee. As Acting

Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, I am

pleased to appear before you today in support of our request for reauthorization. I have submitted a more comprehensive statement

for the record.

I am very proud of the National Transportation Safety Board.

For nearly four decades, the NTSB has been at the forefront of

transportation safety issues. The Board enjoys a well-earned reputation as the most effective and authoritative independent safety

body in the world. The men and women who make up the NTSB

very simply are the best in the business.

I am delighted to be serving as the Acting Chairman of the

NTSB at such an important time for the Board. Our critical mission, as you know, is to investigate transportation accidents to determine what happened and why, and make safety recommendations so that future accidents can be prevented. Our job is to work

with Congress to ensure that the Board maintains the technical

staff and investigative tools that are needed to confidently and efficiently conduct the thorough and unbiased investigations that the

public deserves and Congress has come to expect.

Since our last reauthorization, we have investigated more than

4,500 aviation accidents and hundreds of surface transportation accidents. During this time, we published more than 5,000 aviation

accident briefs, 11 major aviation accident reports, 18 highway accident reports, 31 railroad reports, 10 marine reports, 5 pipeline reports, 4 hazardous material reports and 7 other studies and special

reports.

Since the beginning of fiscal year 2003, our laboratories have

read out 187 flight data recorders, 203 cockpit voice recorders and

performed 458 wreckage examinations. During this time period, the

Board has issued more than 450 recommendations.

We have also recently made some significant leadership changes

at the Board. In March of 2005, Mr. Joe Osterman began serving

as our Board’s Managing Director. Mr. Osterman is effectively

leading a highly talented professional management team. And

since becoming the Acting Chairman, I have focused the Safety
5

Board’s staff priorities on the timely completion of investigations

and the production of relevant accident reports.

During the past year, the Board has changed personnel in 14 of

the top 24 leadership positions. We are currently actively recruiting

a Chief Information Officer, who will join the Agency’s management team with the responsibility of managing the Agency’s information infrastructure. We are tightening the performance management system throughout the Agency, and have focused our efforts

on leadership, communication and the Board’s primary mission of

investigations.

The Safety Board is asking for authorized resource levels capable

of funding 399 full time equivalent positions for fiscal year 2007,

and for 475 FTEs in both fiscal years 2008 and 2009. We have also

asked for a few other proposals.

The Board’s last reauthorization legislation provided the authority for the NTSB to enter into contracts when necessary to expedite

an investigation. We are grateful to have been entrusted with this

special exemption to competitive contracting rules, and we have judiciously used this authority, mostly for relatively small contracts

for investigative services. This important authority expires on September 30th of 2006. We are asking that the sunset provision be

deleted so that the special contracting authority becomes a permanent part of our legislation.

The Board also asks to be authorized to handle reimbursements

in the same manner it currently handles Academy course fees. Occasionally, we are reimbursed by third parties for accident services

those parties are required to provide, such as disaster mortuary

services. And we sometimes agree to conduct accident investigations on a reimbursable basis.

Without a legislative change, these reimbursements often must

be redeposited into the Treasury, unavailable for the use of the

Board. We are asking that we be allowed to treat reimbursements

as no-year money, so that these funds can remain available until

expended.

The Board also has a proposal that concerns paying for the services of the DOT Inspector General. As you know, the Inspector

General is authorized to review the financial management, property management and business operations of the Board. The IG is

reimbursed by the Board for the costs associated with carrying out

these activities.

We are asking that in lieu of the Board reimbursing the IG, the

IG’s office be appropriated directly for these activities. This would

facilitate better resource management and I am pleased to report

that the DOT Inspector General concurs with our proposal.

Our last proposal concerns how to authorize appropriations for

our training center as part of the broader authorization for the

Agency, rather than as a separate or distinct entity. We are actively working to more fully integrate the center into our overall

mission and programs. We believe that a single authorization is

consistent with this goal. In addition, we propose incorporating the

content of the training academy’s annual report into the Board’s

annual report to Congress.

When we were last authorized, our training academy in Ashburn,

Virginia, had not yet been opened. Although it has been oper-
6

ational for just over two years, we are pleased that the Academy

has made great strides in developing and delivering high quality

programs for the transportation community.

During fiscal year 2005, we offered 31 programs, 14 of which

were designed specifically for NTSB employees. Over 1,600 participants attended these programs and the Board collected over

$600,000 in tuition and fees from the attendees. Nonetheless, Safety Board management has significantly revised the philosophy for

the Academy and has created an ambitious business plan to develop and sustain programs through partnerships and contracting

opportunities that will reduce the demands on NTSB investigative

resources. The Academy will rely more heavily on outside instructors and it will provide greater training opportunities for all NTSB

staff.

We will also work with and review the operations of other Government training facilities to ensure that we benefit from their experience and best practices. One of our goals is to more tightly integrate the Academy into the Safety Board’s operation and ongoing

work.

As I close, I want to assure you that we are working hard to ensure that the people and resources of the Board are well managed.

In fact, I am particularly pleased to share with you that in each

of the last fiscal years, our timely and accurate financial statements have received clean audit opinions. Important things are

happening at the Safety Board every day. But we need the continued support of Congress to ensure that we continue to achieve your

goals and our goals as well.

I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am

happy to respond to any questions you may have.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we’ll go through a couple of questions.

I’ll start out by asking a little bit about this 1999 Rand study.

Maybe you could give us an update on what NTSB has done with

respect to implementing some of their recommendations. One of

them was the need for, I believe, a cost accounting system software

analysis, better utilization. You spoke a little bit about some employee training programs for the Academy. Maybe you could cover

a couple of their concern items.

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, certainly. A lot has been

done since seven years ago when that report was published and a

lot of progress has been made. Specifically in the area of the cost

accounting software, there’s been changes implemented in cooperation with our partner who does payroll work for us, the Department of Interior. It’s something called Quick Time. What that will

ultimately do, when we have it fully implemented is to provide specific cost accounting areas so that we understand the amount of

time and resources that are being spent on each one of the investigations at which we are looking.

Now, of course, it takes time to do that type of thing. We just

implemented Quick Time last year, and of course we have to understand what the capabilities are. We are also working very closely with both management and our labor to make sure that we understand exactly what we need to do as far as parameters to be put

into that Quick Time program to get the best bang for the buck.

Unfortunately, it is a very costly program, sir.
7

Mr. MICA. That might raise a question about your ability to do

cost accounting of different activities. You talked about accident investigation. The Academy has also raised questions about its operation and finance.

Can you tell now what it does cost to operate the Academy? You

spoke of some revenues that were received. What are those figures

now, the cost to operate the Academy and then what kind of revenues are coming in?

Mr. ROSENKER. Well, there are fixed costs to the Academy, which is primarily the lease, and that’s about $2.5 million a year. From

there on we have some very small amount of personnel that are

dedicated to it. I’ve reduced it. When I became the Acting Chairman, we went from nine employees down to five, which significantly reduced—

Mr. MICA. But you testified that you are talking about contracting some of those—

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. That’s also a cost.

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir. But what we want to do is try to make

partners out of those contractors at the same time. I’m trying to—

Mr. MICA. So are you going to put a dollar, if we are going to

do some cost accounting on the Academy, what’s the total figure?

You’ve $2.5 million in lease. What’s your total?

Mr. ROSENKER. It’s approximately $3.5 million. We’ve been able

to bring down any of what we would call the deficit to something

close to $150,000 for this fiscal year by reducing—

Mr. MICA. So what’s your revenue?

Mr. ROSENKER. Revenue for fiscal year 2005 was a little over $630,000.

Mr. MICA. Again, trying to get a handle on some of the costs.

And then the question, you said you’d begun some successful employee training efforts through the Academy. So that is another

change underway?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir. What we want to do is try to improve

the training capabilities, and this was a recommendation, of course,

from the Rand Report as well. They suggested that we need significantly more training programs. We’re trying to do this internally,

because when we do it internally, it becomes a more reasonable expense. Otherwise, we’d be sending people TDY, and they’d be away

from the office. We have the capability because of the infrastructure we have at the Academy to not only learn but at the same

time be able to make phone calls back and stay in touch with the

office.

The kinds of programs we’re looking at are management programs. We’re also looking at more advanced technical training in

fields of avionics, composites and new aviation technologies. Those

of course would be taken care of by finding new, leading edge instruction and curriculum from universities, institutions and the

private sector in general.

Mr. MICA. Let me do a couple of quick questions. I want to get

to some other members about safety recommendations and investigations.

The number of flights that we’ve had, the number of passengers

in commercial aviation since 1991, without a major accident, it’s
8

been an absolutely phenomenal record. In fact, we’re working now

against probably just the law of averages.

One of my concerns is if we do see an incident, where we’re going

to have one, we’ve seen a number of serious runway incursions,

most recently in Los Angeles, Boston. NTSB came out and characterized the FAA’s initiative to address runway incursions as ‘‘unacceptable.’’ Can you elaborate on this? Eventually our luck is going

to run out. This, again, the congestion and incursion seem to be an

area where you have some concerns and we have some concerns.

Mr. ROSENKER. Mr. Chairman, you’re right on target with that

question and I thank you for asking me that. We believe that runway incursions are a significant danger to the flying community

today. We have made recommendations to the FAA and yet, again,

they continue to believe that there are other methods that they can

use to alleviate these incursions, while our recommendation states

that a direct communication to the cockpit is the quickest and best

way to prevent runway incursions from happening.

Now, in fairness to the FAA, they are testing some of these types

of procedures. But we still believe that more needs to be done and

more needs to be done in an expeditious way.

Mr. MICA. Just finally, we’ve seen also a shifting offshore of some

of the activities. Someone told me, I think 54 percent of the maintenance is done now overseas. We’re seeing more foreign manufactured aircraft in the United States. I guess Airbus has overtaken

us. All our RJs are produced just about all out of the country.

Does NTSB have sufficient expertise and also ability to deal with

these products that are produced some place else and keeping a

handle on, again, what we’re seeing emerging?

Mr. ROSENKER. Mr. Chairman, we work very hard to stay on the

cutting edge of technology and what’s happening in each one of the

modes. We work very closely with the manufacturers and the operators to understand the designs, to understand the maintenance

programs, to understand where the failures are potentially coming

from and when they actually come, understand what happened.

So we work, as I say, very closely with these manufacturers. I’m

comfortable with the relationships that we have with them. When

in fact accidents occur, the manufacturers and the operators are

part of that investigation process.

Mr. MICA. Just one final thing. Maybe you can give me some response, you don’t have to do it here. I saw that 90 percent of, well,

most of your resources are used in aviation investigations. And I

saw a statement that only 13 percent of your staff are working in

the highway area.

There are 42,000 deaths, 40,000 plus each of the last three years.

I know 120,000 mostly Americans have died. Of course, we’ve had

only a handful of aviation accidents, and we want to keep it that

way.

But I’d be interested in any long term ideas to deal with, again,

the mounting traffic fatality and injury count.

Mr. ROSENKER. Mr. Chairman, 43,000 Americans die every year,

as you say, 3 million are injured, there are 7 million accidents that

occur in the United States. This is probably the worst, worst transportation challenge that we look at as a Nation. I believe we can

do more.
9

Now, again, at the NTSB, with a group of only 400 folks, and a

very small group that deal in the highway issues, we take a look

at the macro issues. Highway investigations are normally done at

the State, county and local level. We see reports. When we begin

to take a look at trends and we believe we can make a difference

in a national trend, that’s when we step in.

One of the things we’re looking at right now, and where we believe we can make a significant difference, is in young people getting involved in accidents. The issue is restricting cell phones when

you’re learning how to drive. That is obviously a skill that you

must learn and you should not be distracted while you are learning

how to drive. We are working very, very closely with the states to

get a provision within their graduated driver’s license program that

will restrict people that are operating in these GDL programs from

using a cell phone or other digital text messaging devices, that type

of thing, while they’re learning how to drive. That will have a national impact on young peoples’ deaths, young people’s accidents,

young people’s injuries.

That’s the type of thing we are working on.

But if I could go one step further, I personally believe that we’re

coming into a new era. We’re in an era where we can begin the

process of preventing the accident, and that is by utilizing technology. Things like electronic stability control becoming features of

the automobile, standard equipment, from preventing the rollover,

things like short range automotive radar that will actually stop the

automobile before it strikes something.

We can get into the business, if we can work hard and advocate

with the manufacturers that technology is the way of the future

and we can begin to prevent the accident rather than continuing

to focus on mitigating the results of the accident.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and as I said, I hope to continue that dialogue on that issue.

Mr. Costello.

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rosenker, I mentioned in my opening remarks that we want

to make certain that you have the resources necessary to have adequate staffing levels to carry out your mission. It’s my understanding from your testimony that you currently have 396 full time staff

at the Agency, and your authorization request level is based upon

staffing at 475 full time staff members.

Is that correct?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir, that’s in the 2008, 2009 request. The

2007 request, of course, brings us to the level we were talking

about.

Mr. COSTELLO. Now, tell me, let’s assume your request is granted

and you get to a staffing level in your 2008 and 2009 request of

475. How will that break down? How many investigators will you

have versus support staff and so on?

Mr. ROSENKER. Currently we have approximately 209 what we

would call badge-carrying investigators. An additional 74 are what

we would characterize as critical mission. Those would include our

transportation disaster assistance people. They go out onto the lo-
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cation and work with the families in dealing with them after a

tragic accident.

It would also include our public affairs, who continues to work

with the media to make sure the American people understand this

is an accident, and not a tragic issue of criminal intent.

Also, we have a function that includes the administrative law

program. That group of people is the appeals court that was described, I believe, in your opening statement. That is a very important mission. When airmen, when mechanics, when seamen lose

their licenses, we are the appeals process. That’s a critical mission

of the NTSB.

In addition to that, we have a number of folks that write the reports. We come to the area where we came up with a probable

cause and a determination. But unless these reports are written in

a way that in fact conveys the messages, all we have are investigators’ notes.

And finally, probably one of the most important aspects of what

we do, is the folks that deal with our recommendations and become

part of the advocacy team. These are the people that make sure

that at the State level, the local level, at the operator’s level, at the

Federal level, that the recommendations are monitored on a daily

basis to make sure that we can get them implemented. Because

without implementation, all we have is a probable cause, and we

have a severe gap in safety.

Mr. COSTELLO. You mentioned in your testimony that the Agency

has significantly revised the philosophy for the Academy and that

was in response to Congressional concerns. I wonder if you would

elaborate as to what you mean by that.

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir. We depended a great deal on internal

staff work. Our folks, as I said earlier in my testimony, I believe

are the best in the business. Investigators are unique. And when

they teach these basic investigation courses, they impart a lot of

their own personal experience and knowledge. Now, that’s a valuable thing to impart. But if it was at the cost of being productive

and continuing in a timely resolution of an investigation, it may

well be too much of a price to pay.

So we have made a philosophical change. We believe that we can

still use on a guest lecturer basis, our best and our brightest investigators to go out and maybe lecture for two or three hours at a

basic investigation course. But that same basic investigation course

could be taught by a partner in this program, a university, a technical training program, and perhaps even industry. We’ve got the

curriculum already developed. So it’s now just continually updating

it and providing it to an instructor.

So that’s one of the philosophical changes we have decided to

make. We also, not only have the courses that we are teaching ourselves, but we believe we have an opportunity to teach others in

the transportation community, foreign students, people that are

from other agencies. We work very closely, for example, with the

FBI. We work very, very closely with other Federal agencies as

NASA and the FAA. So we have an opportunity to teach those people, as well, about the techniques that we use in an accident investigation. We believe we can also use partners in that program as

well.
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In the long run, I believe this is going to be a real market

change. It will provide additional productivity, and better courses.

And also, we need to be able to teach our investigators the leading

edge technologies. We will be looking for the best and brightest to

come in and help us do that as we move into new issues like composites and avionics, fly by wire.

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Coble.

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, good to have you with us today. Thank you for

the good work you all do.

I wanted to make inquiry regarding the number of investigators,

but my friend from Illinois has already touched on that. You said

there are 209 investigators, correct?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. COBLE. Is that group broken down into certain specialty

groups, or are they all just rank and file investigators?

Mr. ROSENKER. No, sir, they are specialists. Actually, our group,

it’s amazing for the size of our organization the number of advanced degrees that we have. Approximately a third of our group

have advanced degrees—excuse me, 25 to 30 percent, I’ll give you

that exact figure. It’s a very high number.

Mr. COBLE. The Chairman mentioned very briefly the Academy.

What constitutes eligibility for enrollment in the Academy?

Mr. ROSENKER. Although we have capability of giving continuing

education credits, I think we may have a misnomer in the using

of the word ‘‘academy.’’ We’re probably a better training center

than we are an academy for higher learning, if you will, sir.

People that are enrolling in the programs right now come from

industry, and they come from other agencies within the Government. And actually, we have a substantial number of our own people going through the courses themselves. Many of those courses

are in the management side of it.

Mr. COBLE. So I guess ongoing, some group may enroll for two

weeks, some for a month?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir, that’s exactly right. And foreign students as well. We’ve taught a significant number of foreign students the accident investigation courses and the techniques that we

use specifically so they will understand how we operate if we are

invited to participate in an accident investigation in their country.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Chairman, are the instructors or the professors

at the Academy, are they NTSB employees?

Mr. ROSENKER. In some of those courses, they are. What we’re

trying to do is wean them off of that, because we believe that we

can do the work just as well with outside instructors, professional

instructors.

Mr. COBLE. How does the NTSB, Mr. Chairman, propose to cover

the operating costs, including costs of developing new courses, et

cetera?

Mr. ROSENKER. Part of that will be in a partnership process and

in our business plan. The other part would be making sure that

we’ve got a fair market value on our product. I believe we could
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raise the prices to the tune of 10, 15, 20 percent. Early on, we may

have been giving this product away much too inexpensively.

Mr. COBLE. You mean raising prices for enrollment?

Mr. ROSENKER. Of the tuition, yes, sir.

Mr. COBLE. Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me ask you this. I’ve been

advised that there are currently 807 open recommendations with a

number of investigations. If you will, tell us what this means? Is

it good, bad, indifferent?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir. What that means is, safety is not being

well served with that 800 and some odd recommendations not

being implemented. We’ve been working very hard, but we are not

the only people that have been working very hard. I will give credit

to my predecessors, beginning with former Chairman Jim Hall,

who began an aggressive program to get recommendations implemented.

As I said earlier, the problem is, after we’ve come up with the

probable cause, the real challenge is to get the operator, the manufacturer, the Government entity, to listen to what we’ve had to say

and to implement it. We’ve done a good job when they are finally

implemented. We’re up now to 83 percent of our recommendations

getting implemented. Matter of fact, our most wanted, which are

the most challenging of our recommendations, we’re at 85 percent.

The real problem, sir, is how long it takes. So if I could ask for

any support, sir, perhaps you may wish to put some time lines into

when our recommendations need to be reacted upon in some way,

shape or form. That would go a long way. Because unfortunately,

too many times our recommendations will be out there for two and

three and four and five years, some of which are nine and ten

years. And that, sir, is much too long to have a gap in safety.

Mr. COBLE. I thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We would probably welcome a recommendation on that. It might be difficult, because sometimes you

need more time to do a thorough investigation, not interfering with

that time required. It might be something you could submit to the

Committee.

Mr. Carnahan, you had a question?

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to focus my questions to a couple of recommendations that

came out of the Rand Report regarding the party process. I want

to read a bit of their conclusions.

It indicated that in order to leverage NTSB resources, I’ll just

read it here, ‘‘the reliability of the party process has always had

the potential to be compromised by the fact that the party most

likely to be named to assist in an investigation is also likely to be

named defendants in a related civil litigation. The inherent conflict

of interest may jeopardize or be perceived to jeopardize the integrity of the NTSB investigation.’’

It went on further to say, ‘‘The NTSB must augment the party

process by tapping additional sources of outside expertise needed to

resolve the conflict circumstances of a crash case. The NTSB’s own

resources and facilities must also be enhanced if the Agency’s independence is to be assured.’’
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I guess I’d first like to focus on the Agency’s own resources where

you see shortfalls that we can address through the process here in

the Congress.

Mr. ROSENKER. Thank you, sir. Clearly, resources are a challenge

for us. We’re a small agency. Technology moves very, very quickly.

And sometimes, catastrophic accidents will happen right on top of

each other. It is amazing how long you can go without an accident

and then just by some quirk of fate, one, two, three things will happen within a very short period of time, which does stretch our resources.

But it’s the technical end of what we are looking at where I think

we need to make our greatest, if you will, strides. And that is in

the newest and most advanced sides of technology. We need people

that are in the areas, say, for example, of computer tool design. We

need them in composites. We need them in electrical engineering

that deals with the fly by wire aspects of aircraft. So we need that

type of expertise.

Mr. CARNAHAN. You’re specifically referring to you need that type

of expertise internally?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir, we do.

Mr. CARNAHAN. Is that involved in any of your requests before

the Congress?

Mr. ROSENKER. Well, it certainly would be included in our 2008

and 2009 budget. For the 2007 budget, it’s unfortunately the status

quo at this time.

Mr. CARNAHAN. The other piece of this is regarding additional

sources of outside independent expertise to involve them in the

process. Can you tell me what steps are being taken to do that?

Mr. ROSENKER. When there is a specific need for a technical expert that we do not have on our staff, we have funds to be able to

contract, to be able to hire that consultant. And we do that, in

some very complex cases. For example, American 587 was a very

complex case. It was one of the most probably visible and catastrophic accident we had seen to date dealing with a composite material. And was there a question on whether the composite material

failed or was it something else.

So we used a significant amount of technical experts on that particular accident, including NASA and a lot of other highly, highly

technical and highly competent technical experts to help us with

that. That accident was completed, I believe it was last year. We

came to a very good conclusion that was agreed to by everyone.

Mr. CARNAHAN. Lastly with regard to these, has there been any

discussion about how to better involve family representatives or experts in some appropriate way through the investigative process?

Mr. ROSENKER. We have our family assistance program which

deals with, directly, on a day to day basis, with those that have lost

loved ones in catastrophic accidents. We have experts, clearly,

when we need them, participating in our program and of course the

party system, we believe, works very well. It’s not perfect, but recognizing that the parties are there to provide technical expertise

that we may not have, it’s all factual what they deal in. They are

not involved in any of the analysis aspect of the investigation, only

providing facts.
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So we believe it has worked fairly well, the system that has been

in place for almost 40 years.

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you very much. I would certainly welcome

the opportunity to follow up with some written questions we may

have at the conclusion of this hearing.

Mr. ROSENKER. Sir, I would be delighted to answer any of those.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Marchant.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you. My question has to do with the fuel

vapors and the fuel tanks in the transport category. I represent an

area that includes DFW airport. On a recent tour out there, they

were expressing some concern about some rules they thought might

be deemed promulgated. Could you discuss that whole issue with

me, please?

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, sir. These are recommendations that came

as a result of TWA flight 800. Success, unfortunately, is taking too

much time. It has been nine years or so since we promulgated

these recommendations. The FAA is now about ready to come up

with the NPRM and they are doing what we have asked them to

do in the long term solution. But they have failed in the short term

solution. We believe that more can be done and should be promulgated through operational changes. Relatively simple operational

changes would prevent this type of thing from happening. So we’re

getting half a loaf. That may not be good enough.

Mr. MARCHANT. Okay, thank you.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Millender-McDonald?

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward, and Ranking Member, thank you

so much. But Mr. Chairman, I look forward to welcoming you again

to California and to Long Beach during the district work period.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. You caught me by surprise. We are coming

out, I think the 20th, 19th and 20th, to southern California to look

at some of the congestion in the aviation.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. That is correct.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your invitation and we hope you will

participate.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you so much.

Before I get to the questions, Mr. Chairman, today is International Women’s Day. I have two women with me who are shadowing me today, from Afghanistan. We have some from Iraq. I

would like to just introduce them. Habiba Danesh was the first

woman to attend the University of Tatar. She studied biochemistry.

She was also one of President Karzi’s campaign managers. Habiba

Danesh, will you please stand?

And we have Sharifi Zormati, who is and was a television producer, anchor woman. She serves as an independent member on

the transportation committee in Afghanistan. I just wanted to welcome them as they are here looking at us today.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We would like to welcome you and we

hope you enjoy your visit. Today is fortunately a non-controversial

hearing. You ought to come back for the lively ones.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rosenker, than you so much for your presentation this morning. The Chairman spoke to you about incursions, and certainly we
15

have those in the Los Angeles area, at LAX as well as in the Long

Beach airport. So I am very interested in knowing the different

methodologies that you and FAA have and would like to perhaps

get a report. We will try to pursue that from your office as well as

FAA.

Mr. ROSENKER. Thank you. I can provide that in writing to you

if you like.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you very much.

Mr. ROSENKER. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. There was a recent article in the

Washington Post that implied that NTSB has launched fewer general aviation accident investigations than in the past. In the past

you’ve had more. I say this because the public wants to hear from

you in terms of public hearings on these types of accident investigations. We know that you have had in excess of 124,000 aviation

accidents sine 1967.

So are you intending to have more hearings so that the public,

the flying public will understand what is going on? How are you

going to address that given the recent article in the Washington

Post?

Mr. ROSENKER. Thank you, ma’am. Let me begin with talking

about how we have to steward our resources in getting on-scene to

general aviation accidents. There are approximately 1,800 to 1,900

GA accidents that occur every year. We, by law, will take a report,

do a report, come up with a probable cause, and then provide that

to the public.

We look at approximately, we were looking at say in the beginning of 2001, approximately 75 percent of the fatal accidents. There

are only something like 350 of those that occur, thank goodness, of

the 1,900. We were going on-scene to approximately 350 of those

accidents.

Given the resources that we are dealing in today, and the backlog that we had at that time, at that time we had something close

to 2,500 accident reports that were incomplete that were over six

months old. That meant that we didn’t know what had happened.

A report had not been completed and provided a probable cause.

At the same time, we were continuing to launch, so the backlog

was growing. We made a conscious decision to begin the process of

monitoring accidents where we believed the safety payback would

be much more valuable by launching on that accident than one

which appeared to us to be not quite as valuable or that we knew

for example the answer before we would even go. Remember that

somebody is going to that accident. Primarily it is the FAA that

will go that accident, and provide us information. We will then follow up with witness interviews. We may, depending upon the character of that accident, ask for an engine tear-down, and look at materials. We will do a host of things even though we may not have

been physically at that site to give an accurate final determination.

And sometimes, we were able to make recommendations.

We’ve gone from 75 percent in 2001 to today where we go to 62

percent of the GA accidents, fatals, 62 percent, a reduction of approximately 13 percent. But for that, we have been able to close the

2,500 open investigations that we had in 2001 to today, to less than

400 open investigations. What we’re able to do now is make, by vir-
16

tue of looking at the trends and having our people have more time

for analysis, we’re able to make recommendations to prevent these

kinds of things from being repetitive, from happening again.

We even have plans to automate a system even more which will

enable us to go directly to a data base with the descriptions of the

kinds of things that we are seeing at the accidents that will then

flag us to say, one happened here in Ohio, one happened here in

Illinois, one happened here in Pennsylvania. And we can begin to

put those together where I believe we will have a higher quality

report in a more timely fashion and do more to be able to prevent

the accidents from happening again.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. That’s an excellent account of what

you do. The public is not always cognizant of that, though. It would

seem to me like the reports you put out, those that aren’t fatal, but

the others that you seek to report on. Of course, the fatal ones you

do come before the public. But the others, if you could just make

an announcement, that this is a report from that accident, just a

public announcement, it certainly seems to me that it would help

the public in understanding the role and the complexity of your job.

Mr. ROSENKER. It’s an excellent idea, ma’am. We do publish everything we do on our web site. All of those accident reports are

available on the web site. The general aviation community is religious about reading our web site, I can tell you, we get calls every

day about them.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. The last question that I have, Mr.

Chairman and Ranking Member, is does video need to be a standard in the black box technology, and will that video provide the

aviation industry with a better understanding of what causes

crashes and can it be used to enhance security?

Mr. ROSENKER. Let me speak to the safety issues, which I have

more expertise and are clearly within my portfolio. We believe that

the video imaging would be a significant help to our investigators

and speed the process in coming to a probable cause. It is a piece

of evidence which right now is missing. We have been on the record

for a long time of how important this would be to solving a lot of

mysteries that to date we may not be able to solve as well as we

would like to.

So that is an improvement we have been asking the FAA to work

on, along with giving us two hour black boxes, along with additional battery life of an additional 10 minutes on these boxes, so

that after the power to them stops, they are continuing to gather

information for us. So it’s up to the FAA. We’ve told them what we

wanted, and it’s on our most wanted list.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. How close are they to providing this

for you, do you know?

Mr. ROSENKER. Unfortunately, I can’t give you an exact answer

of how close. It does take them a while. They do study, they do

read our material, they do take it seriously. They just may not be

as responsive as we would like them to be in the time frame that

we would like it to be.

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Mr. Chairman, I would like to go on

record that we perhaps seek the, inquire with the FAA as to how

soon this type of technology will be put in place. Of course, we
17

know that that’s a cost incurred. But it is vital, perhaps, for our

understanding of crashes and the security nature of it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentlelady.

Mr. DeFazio.

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Administrator.

During the last reauthorization, we had lengthy discussion and

some controversy over one particular issue which is, NTSB often,

as a result of investigating an accident or something that has

raised safety concerns, makes proposals to the agencies involved,

FAA and others, that actions be taken. Ms. Millender-McDonald

was just pointing out one of those.

My recollection is that instead of requiring some sort of mandate

that they respond to each and every one, we came up with these

so-called hot issues list or something like that.

How many items are, let’s say, let’s just narrow it down to the

FAA. How responsive have they been? How many items are pending on your hot button list or whatever you call it list? What’s it

called?

Mr. ROSENKER. Sir, it’s called our most wanted list. I happen to

have a copy for your perusal right here, sir.

Mr. DEFAZIO. Great.

Mr. ROSENKER. You asked how many issues there are, and I’ll

give you the large issues, as opposed to a specific number of recommendations. There are five major issue areas on our most wanted list that deal with the FAA. One is the reduction of dangers to

aircraft flying in icy conditions, that’s a large one. Mr. Marchant

talked about the elimination of flammable fuel air vapors in fuel

tanks on transport category aircraft. Runway incursions, which we

also covered a little earlier today. The Congresswoman--

Mr. DEFAZIO. Ms. Millender-McDonald.

Mr. ROSENKER. Thank you. Dealt with the issues of audio and

data recorders, and also dealt with the video. And finally, one that

the FAA has flat out said they are not going to do, they just flat

out said they won’t, and that’s the required restraint systems for

children under the age of two. They told us this last year. We’re

still going to keep it on our most wanted list, because we believe

it’s an important, important regulation which would give our most

vulnerable the same safety that everybody else has on the airplane.

Mr. DEFAZIO. Do you feel this system is adequate to at least engender some scrutiny and response or time line from the Agency?

Is there something we could do to maybe turn up the heat a little

bit? Particularly, I agree with you on the restraint systems. We

have been trying for years on this Committee to mandate it. They

relied upon one lame study that wasn’t a study that was actually

a proprietary survey of whether people would fly or drive their car,

and then sort of the bogus argument that somehow the children

would be more endangered in the car, where they would be in a

restraint system, by Federal law. I guess maybe it’s State by

State—I don’t know of any States that don’t have that.

And I share your frustration. So is there something we could do,

or is it, do you think this is about as far as we can take this issue?

Mr. ROSENKER. Sir, I can tell you, there’s not much more I can

do other than continue to be indignant and pound my hand on the
18

table and do press conferences and be angry and tell them they are

missing the point here. Sir, you have significantly more power than

I have.

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, I’m in the minority. But yes, I certainly

would be happy if the Chairman would like to take that issue up

again and look at a mandate.

Let me ask another question, and this one is a little more hypothetical. Do you believe, particularly right now, we have a number

of airlines that are in financial distress, do you believe that you can

draw a line between safety concerns and commercial operations?

Do you think such a line exists, or it’s a wall, it’s impenetrable and

we would never see anything happening on the commercial side

that could jeopardize safety?

Mr. ROSENKER. Sir, that’s a very interesting question. I believe

the people that operate the commercial aircraft that we fly on

today are very serious about maintenance and very serious about

safety. They recognize the cost if in fact something goes wrong.

They recognize not only is it a cost in finance but in human costs

and in public relations cost.

So they are working very hard, I personally believe, to do everything they can to make sure their aircraft are maintained properly.

There are rules and regulations about maintenance that the FAA

enforces and promulgates. Thus far we’ve been very fortunate and

I believe we have not seen anything to give us any indication that

people on a routine basis at the major carrier level are doing anything to take maintenance shortcuts or safety shortcuts.

Mr. DEFAZIO. Have you applied any scrutiny to the outsourcing?

It appears to me that we are about back where we were with Value

Jet, that the amount of outsourcing and the anemic FAA oversight

of outsourcing has led us back to those days where we’re kind of

dependent upon, it isn’t a really rigorously regulated system. But

I suppose you wouldn’t get into doing oversight of that until there’s

an accident that’s a result of it, and then we would find out that

there are problems with it.

Mr. ROSENKER. You’re exactly right, sir.

Mr. DEFAZIO. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Any additional questions?

Well, we want to thank you, Mr. Rosenker, for your testimony.

Fortunately, you don’t have a very controversial reauthorization,

but hopefully there are some improvements we can make into the

reauthorization, incorporate into the reauthorization.

We look forward to working with you in that regard. We will

keep the hearing record open for a period of two weeks. Without

objection, so ordered. We may have some additional questions we

will submit for the record.

With that, there being no further business before the Aviation

Subcommittee, I’ll adjourn this hearing. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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