JPDO has made progress in planning NextGen by facilitating collaboration among its partner agencies, working to finalize key planning documents, and improving its collaboration and coordination with FAA. Among the challenges JPDO faces are institutionalizing collaboration among the partner agencies, and identifying and exploring questions related to which entity will fund and conduct the research and development needed to meet NextGen requirements. JPDO has made progress in many areas in planning NextGen, as we reported in November 2006. I will highlight just a few of those areas in this testimony. First, JPDO has taken several actions that are consistent with practices that facilitate interagency collaboration—an important point given how critical such collaboration is to the success of JPDO’s mission. For example, the JPDO partner agencies worked together to develop a high level plan for NextGen along with eight strategies that broadly address the goals and objectives for NextGen. JPDO has since issued two annual updates to this plan, as required by Congress. Also, JPDO’s organizational structure involves federal and nonfederal stakeholders throughout. This structure includes a federal interagency senior policy committee, an institute for nonfederal stakeholders, and eight integrated product teams that bring together federal and nonfederal experts to plan for and coordinate the development of technologies that will address JPDO’s eight broad strategies. JPDO has also begun leveraging the resources of its partner agencies in part by reviewing their research and development programs, identifying work to support NextGen, and working to minimize duplication of research programs across the agencies. For example, one opportunity for coordination involves aligning aviation weather research across FAA, NASA, and the Departments of Commerce and Defense, developing a common weather capability, and integrating weather information into NextGen. In addition to developing and updating its high-level integrated plan, first published in December 2004, JPDO has been working to develop several critical documents that form the foundation of NextGen planning, including a draft concept of operations and an enterprise architecture. The concept of operations describes how the transformational elements of NextGen will operate in 2025. It is intended to establish general stakeholder buy-in to the NextGen end state, a transition path, and a business case. The enterprise architecture follows from the concept of operations and will describe the system in more detail (using the federal enterprise architecture framework). It will be used to integrate NextGen efforts of the partner agencies. The draft concept of operations has been posted to JPDO’s Web site for stakeholder review and comment. According to JPDO, an expanded version of the enterprise architecture is expected in mid-2007. Progress has also been made in improving the collaboration and coordination between JPDO and FAA—the agency largely responsible for the implementation of NextGen systems and capabilities. FAA has expanded and revamped its Operational Evolution Plan (OEP)—renamed the Operational Evolution Partnership—to become FAA’s implementation plan for NextGen. The OEP is being expanded to apply to all of FAA and is intended to become a comprehensive description of how the agency will implement NextGen, including the required technologies, procedures, and resources. An ATO official told us that the new OEP is to be consistent with JPDO’s key planning documents and partner agency budget guidance. According to FAA, the new OEP will allow it to demonstrate appropriate budget control and linkage to NextGen plans and will force FAA’s research and development to be relevant to NextGen’s requirements. According to FAA documents, the agency plans to publish the new OEP in June 2007. In an effort to further align FAA’s efforts with JPDO’s plans for NextGen, FAA has created a NextGen Review Board to oversee the OEP. This Review Board will be co-chaired by JPDO’s Director and ATO’s Vice President of Operations Planning. Initiatives, such as concept demonstrations or research, proposed for inclusion in the OEP, will now need to go through the Review Board for approval. Initiatives are to be assessed for relation to NextGen requirements, concept maturity, and risk. An ATO official told us that the new OEP process should also help identify some smaller programs that might be inconsistent with NextGen and which could be discontinued. Additionally, as a further step towards integrating ATO and JPDO, the administration’s reauthorization proposal calls for the JPDO Director to be a voting member of FAA’s Joint Resources Council and ATO’s Executive Council. Although JPDO has established a framework for collaboration, it has faced a challenge in institutionalizing this framework. As JPDO is a coordinating body, it has no authority over its partner agencies’ key human and technological resources needed to continue developing plans and system requirements for NextGen. For example, JPDO has been working to establish a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with its partner agencies to more clearly define partner agencies’ roles and responsibilities since at least August 2005. As of March 16, 2007, however, the MOU remained unsigned. Another key activity for strengthening the collaborative effort will be synchronizing the NextGen enterprise architecture with the partner agencies’ enterprise architectures. These types of efforts, which would better institutionalize JPDO’s collaborative framework throughout the partner agencies, will be critical to JPDO’s ability to leverage the necessary funding for developing NextGen. Institutionalization would help ensure that, as administrations and staffing within JPDO change over the years, those coming into JPDO will have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities and of the time and resource commitments entailed. JPDO faces a challenge in developing a comprehensive cost estimate for the NextGen effort. In its recent 2006 Progress Report, JPDO reported some cost estimates related to FAA’s NextGen investment portfolio, which I will discuss in more detail later in this statement. However, JPDO is still working to develop an understanding of the future requirements of its other partner agencies and the users of the system. JPDO stated that it sees its work in estimating costs as an ongoing process. The office notes that it will gain additional insight into the business, management, and technical issues and alternatives that will go into the long-term process of implementing NextGen as it continues to work with industry, and that it expects its cost estimates to continue to evolve. Another challenge facing JPDO is exploring potential gaps in the research and development necessary to achieve some key NextGen capabilities and to keep the development of new systems on schedule. In the past, a significant portion of aeronautics research and development, including intermediate technology development, has been performed by NASA. However, our analysis of NASA’s aeronautics research budget and proposed funding shows a 30 percent decline, in constant 2005 dollars, from fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2011. To its credit, NASA plans to focus its research on the needs of NextGen. However, NASA is also moving toward a focus on fundamental research and away from developmental work and demonstration projects. FAA is currently assessing its capacity to address these issues. Currently it is unknown how all of the significant research and development activities inherent in the transition to NextGen will be conducted or funded. Still another challenge facing JPDO is ensuring that all relevant stakeholders are involved in the effort. Some stakeholders, such as current air traffic controllers and technicians, will play critical roles in NextGen, and their involvement in planning for and deploying the new technology will be important to the success of NextGen. In November 2006, we reported that air traffic controllers were not involved in the NextGen planning effort. Controllers are beginning to become involved as the controllers’ union is now represented on a key planning body. However, technicians are currently not participating in NextGen efforts. Input from current air traffic controllers who have recent experience controlling aircraft and current technicians who will maintain the new equipment is important is considering human factors and safety issues. Our work on past air traffic control modernization projects has shown that a lack of stakeholder or expert involvement early and throughout a project can lead to cost increases and delays. Addressing human factors issues is another key challenge for JPDO. For example, the NextGen concept of operations envisions that pilots will take on a greater share of the responsibility for maintaining safe separation and other tasks currently performed by controllers—raising human factors questions about whether pilots can safely perform these additional duties. According to JPDO, the change in the roles of controllers and pilots is the most important human factors issue involved in creating NextGen but will be difficult to research because data on pilot behavior are not readily available for use in creating models. Finally, we reported in November 2006 that establishing credibility was viewed by the majority of the expert panelists we consulted as a challenge facing JPDO. This view partially stems from past experiences in which the government has stopped some modernization efforts after industry invested in supporting technologies. Stakeholders’ belief that the government is fully committed to NextGen will be important as efforts to implement NextGen technologies move forward. Another credibility challenge for JPDO is convincing stakeholders that the collaborative effort is making progress toward facilitating implementation. To address this challenge, the new Director of JPDO is planning to implement some structural and procedural changes to the office. For example, the Director has proposed changing JPDO’s integrated product teams into “working groups” that would task small teams with exploring specific issues and delivering discrete work products. These changes have not yet been implemented at JPDO and it will take some time before the effectiveness of these changes can be evaluated. FAA is a principal player in JPDO’s efforts and will be the chief implementer of NextGen.