signing ceremony took place at fort belvoir in virginia. it lasts about 15 minutes. [applause] >> hello, fort belvoir. [cheers and applause] everybody have a seat. i think i'm going to take sergeant major mcgruder on the road. [laughter] i'm just going to have them introduce me where ever i go. he got me excited, and i'm being -- i get introduce all the time. so thank you, james, for your incredible served our country. give james a big round of applause. [applause]

>> i also want to say a big thanks to america's new secretary of veterans affairs, bob mcdonnell who is here. stand up, bob. [applause] >> as some of you may know, bob head of one of the biggest, most successful companies in the world. but he also was a west point grad, also a ranger who served valiantly on behalf of his country. and this is a labor of love for him, and he is hit the ground running. he's heading out to the hospitals and clinics around the country, starting with phoenix tomorrow. so thank you, bob, for accepting this charge and this challenge, making sure that we're doing right by our veterans. i know you're going to do a great job. really proud of him. [applause]

>> i want to thank all the members of congress who are here today, and i specia especially o thank those who led the fight to get bob and the va more of the resources and flexibility that they need to make sure every veteran has access to the care and benefits that they've earned. senator bernie sanders. senator richard burr, represented mike nice shot, representative jeff miller. give them a big round of applause. thank you. thanks for the good work. [applause] >> and we're all grateful to her outstanding veterans service organizations are all the work that they do on half of our veterans and their families. so thank you very much to all the veteran service organizations. was all i want to thank general began and sergeant major turnbull, and all of you who serve here at fort belvoir. for nearly a century this base has helped keep america strong and secure.

70 years ago troops from here, the 29th infantry division, the blue and gray, were some of the first two storm omaha beach. and in recent years many of you have deployed to iraq and afghanistan. you've missed your lives on multiple tours to defend our nation. and as a country we have a sacred obligation to serve you as well as you served us, an obligation that doesn't and with your tour of duty. every day hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants at the va help us honor that commitment. at va hospitals across america we've got doctors and nurses for delivering world-class care to america's veterans. we have millions of veterans and their families who are profoundly grateful for the good work that is done at the va. and as commander-in-chief, i'm grateful, too. but over the last few months,

we've discovered some inexcusable misconduct at some va health care facilities, stories our veterans are denied the care they needed, long wait times being covered up, cooking the books. this is wrong. it was outrageous. and working together we set out to fix it and do right by our veterans across the board, no matter how long it took. we've already taken the first steps to change the way the va does business. we've held people accountable for misconduct. some have already been relieved of their duties, and investigations are ongoing. we've reached out to more than 215,000 veterans so far to make sure that we're getting them off weightless and to be clinics both inside and outside the va system. we are moving ahead with energy reforms concluding stronger management and leadership and oversight. and we are instituting a critical culture of accountability, rebuilding our leadership team, starting at the top with secretary mcdonald.

and one of his first acts is that he has directed all the health care facilities to old town halls to hear directly from the veterans that they serve to make sure that we are hearing honest assessments about what's going on. now come in a few minutes, we will take another step forward when i signed into law the va reform bill that was passed overwhelmingly with a bipartisan majority -- and that doesn't happen often in congress. it's a good deal. [laughter] [applause] >> this bill covers a lot of ground, from expanding survivor benefits and educational opportunities, to improving care for veterans struggling with traumatic brain injury and for victims of sexual assault. but today i want to focus on the ways this bill help us ensure that veterans have access to the care that they've earned.

first of all this will give the va more of the resources that it needs. it will help the va hired more doctors and more nurses and staff more clinics. as a new generation of veterans returned home for more and transition into civilian system can keep pacce with the new demand. keep in mind that i have increased funding for the va since i came into office by extraordinary amounts. but we also have extraordinary numbers of veterans coming home. and so the demand, even though we have increased the va budget, is still higher than the resources that we've got. this bill helps to address that. second, for veterans who can't get timely care through the va, this bill will help them get the care they need someplace else. and this is particularly important for veterans who are in more remote areas come in

rural areas. if you live more than 40 miles from a va facility, or if the doctors can see within a reasonable amount of time, you will have the chance to see a doctor outside the va system. now finally we are giving the va secretary more authority to hold people accountable. we've got to give bob the authority so that he can move quickly to remove senior executives who fail to meet the standards of conduct and competence that the american people demand. if you engage in an unethical practice, if you cover up a serious problem, you should be fired. period. it shouldn't be that difficult. [applause] and if you blow the whistle on an unethical practice, or bring a problem to the attention of higher ups, you should be thank. you should be protected for doing the right thing. [applause] you shouldn't be ignored, and

you certainly shouldn't be punished. to care for him, or her, who shall have borne the battle. that's the heart of the va's motto. that's what the bill on about design will help us achieve. but i want to be clear about something. this will not and cannot be the end of our effort. implementing this law will take time. it's going to require focus on the part of all of us. and even as we focus on the urgent reforms we need at the va right now, particularly around weightless and health care system, we can't lose sight of our long-term goals for servicemembers and our veterans. the good news is we cut the disputed claims backlog by more than half. but let's now eliminate the backlog. let's get rid of it. [applause] the good news is we've poured

major resources into improving mental health care. but now let's make sure our veterans ask to get the care they need when they need. the good news is with helping thousand homeless veterans off the street, made an unprecedented effort to end veterans homelessness. we should have zero tolerance for that. but we've got still more work to do in cities and towns across america to get more veterans into the homes they deserve. >> we have helped more than a million veterans and their spouses com, and children go to college to the post 9/11 g.i. bill. applaud the spirit that now that helped even more of them earn their education and make sure that they're getting a good bargain in the schools that enroll in. we have rallied couples to hire hundreds of thousands of veterans and their spouses but that's a good news. with the help of jil joe biden d michelle obama, to pretty capable women. [laughter] they know what they are doing,

nobody says no to them. including me. but now we've got to help more of our highly skilled veterans find careers in this new economy. so america has to do right by all who serve under our proud flag. and congress needs t to do more also. i urge the senate, once again, to finally confirm my nominee for assistant secretary for policy at the va, linda scwartz. my nominee to lead the board of veterans appeals, constance tobias. my nominee for cfo, helen tierney. each of them have been waiting for months for a yes or no vote. in constance's case for more than a year. they are ready to serve. they're ready to get to work. it's not that hard. it didn't used to be this hard to just go ahead and get somebody confirm who is well qualified. nobody says they're not. it's just a senate doesn't seem to move very fast. as soon as the senate gets back

in september they should act to put these outstanding public servants in place. our veterans don't have time for politics. they need these public servants on the job right now. [applause] so let me wrap up by saying two months ago i had a chance to spend some time with some of america's oldest veterans at omaha beach. beach. some of you may have seen on television the celebration, the commemoration, of those incredible days of the 70 anniversary of d-day. this was my second visit to democracy beachhead. it's the second time i've gone as president. it's a place where it's impossible not to be moved by the courage and the sacrifice of free men and women who volunteer to lay down their lives for people they've never met, ideals that they can't live without.

that's why they're willing to do these things. some of these folks that you met, they were 18, some of them were lying about their age. they were 16, landing either at the beach either at the beach or sometimes behind the line. the casualty rates were unbelievable. being there brought back memories of my own grandfather who marched in patton's army, and then came home. and like so many veterans of his generation, they went to school and got married and raise families. and eventually helped to raise me. and on that visit to normandy, i brought some of today's servicemembers with me because i wanted to introduce them to the veterans of d-day and to show the veterans of d-day that the legacy is in good hands, that there's a direct line between the sacrifices event and the sacrifices that folks have made in remote places today.

because in more than a decade of war, today's men and women in uniform, all of you, you've made every nation we've asked of you. today, our troops continue to serve and risk their lives in afghanistan. it continues to be a difficult and dangerous mission, as we were tragically reminded again this week in the attack that injured a number of our coalition troops and took the life of a dedicated american soldier, major general harold greene. our prayers are with the greene family, as they are with all the gold star families and those who have sacrificed so much for our nation. four months from now our combat mission in afghanistan with the complete. our longest war will come to an honorable end. in the used it, many from this generation will start out of uniform, and their legacy will be secure. but whether or not this country properly repays their heroism, properly repays their

patriotism, their service and their sacrifice, that's in our hands. i'm committed to seeing that we fulfill that commitment. because the men and women of this generation, this 9/11 generation of servicemembers, are the leaders we need for our time, as community leaders and business leaders, i hope maybe some leaders in our politics as well. from the greatest generation to the 9/11 generation, america's heroes have answered the call to serve. i have no greater honor than serving as your president and commander-in-chief. and i have no greater privilege and the chance to help make sure that our country keeps the promises that we've made to everybody who signs up to serve. and as long as i hold this office, we're going to spend each and every day working to be right by you and your families. i'm grateful to you. god bless you. god bless america. with that, i'm going to sign this bill. thank you very much, everybody. [applause]

all right, squeezing everybody. good work, thank you. -- squeeze in everybody. i don't get enough practice. i want more. i wantore. just signed the workforce training bill. i said this feels good, doesn't it? we have to do it more often. but you have to get everybody on the committee, did really good work on the somewhat to thank everybody for their leadership.

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>> you just saw the president signing the va health care bill at fort belvoir earlier. several members of congress on twitter with related comments. >> the white house is weighing issues of options in iraq, including humanitarian aid and possible military strikes against a militant group isis. white house press secretary josh

earnest was asked about that during today's daily briefing. >> that he american situation is deeply disturbing and it's one we are following closely. that said, it's important for everyone to understand, and the president made this clear that there are no american military solutions to the problems in iraq. we can't solve these problems for them. these problems can only be solved with iraqi political solutions. that is the core of our thinking as we confront these kinds of situations. now, the president had at the same time demonstrated he is clear willingness to take the kind of military action that's required to protect core american interest. that includes things like protecting american personnel around the globe. he is taking actions like that in other countries. the president has also made

clear that american military action in iraq would not include combat boots on the ground. that is a principle the present laid out beginning and that's, continues to be true today. >> it sounds like what you're saying is that this is under consideration? >> i'm not in a position to shed light about the presence think at this point. he's been pretty clear about the broader problems and the broader challenges that are facing the people of iraq right now. what is clear is that they're no american military solutions to the problems. the solutions are only going to come about through the kinds of political reforms that only the iraqis themselves can undertake speed it sounds as though to deliver this butchering aid something they have to be done militarily to soften isil, isis in those areas so those supplies can go in. is that a correct read of the situation to? i'm not in a position to budget

tactical assessment of situations on the grid i can give insight into the president's thinking in general about the principles that would apply to contemplate his military action. that would include no combat was being put on the ground in iraq. the president has been clear about that and he still holds. the president has also been put these militant action that would be taken be very limited in scope and very specific to address a core american objective. >> you laid out earlier this summer, that remains the case no? >> and that would include things like protecting american personnel or confronting counterterrorism. the other thing that we've been also very clear about is that any sort of american military action would have to be closely tied to iraqi political reform that are long overdue. the good news on that is that we have seen in recent weeks some steps taken by iraq's political leaders to form a government on a timeline that is much more,

much faster than they have made these kind of decisions in the past. just in the last couple weeks we have seen the election of a new iraqi president which is occurred. we've seen the appointment of a new iraqi speaker who is sunni. and the appointment of two deputy speakers from one of them is occurred and one is a shia. what continues, the work that remains to be done in terms of political reforms is the election of a new iraqi prime minister, and cohesive government that is committed to leading the country in a way that reflects iraq's diverse population, and gives confidence to the citizens of iraq that the government is looking out for the interests and well being of every citizen. >> watch all of today's white house briefing on c-span.org.

the air line pilots association international is hosting its annual conference in washington, d.c. today we've been covering that for your live here on c-span2 and we will return for more of that event at 3 p.m. eastern, just a few minutes from now. for a panel looking at ways to modernize the airspace system. begin live coverage on c-span2 at 3 p.m. eastern time. tonight on c-span2 we continue to bring you booktv highlights in prime time. booktv tonight at eight eastern here on c-span2. >> tonight on a companion network c-span we get a look at some of these senate races in play during the fall midterm elections but we'll bring you

live coverage of victory and concession speeches following the results of today's tennessee senate primary, as well as highlights from recent debates in hawaii and virginia primary contests. begin live coverage along with your phone calls getting underway tonight at eight eastern over on c-span. for more about primary day in tennessee we spoke to a washingn political reporter from that host: state. wthe most impo >> what's the most important thing to watch in tennessee today and specifically who's the most important person to watch?c >> i think the most important thing to watch in tennessee today is going to be the senate race. senator lamar alexandar is ad legend in tennessee politics.ea. he's been involved in politics for over 40 years. a he's running for a third term and he's facing a pretty the aggressive challenge from the tea party, a cup of tea party candidates. the most serious of hisoe challengers is a state represented by the name of

he has gottensu the support ofe some prominent members of the tea party. sarah palin endorsed him. radio personality laura ingraham also has endorsed him when sheaw came to tennessee and held a rally for him a few weeks ago. i he has been going across the state telling people that senator alexander is an insider. he is no longer someone who represents their interests. he's had somewhat of a difficult time getting out his message because it doesn't have a whole lot of money. he has run an aggressive campaign and that is the one that i think most people will be paying attention to tonight. >> host: so are outside groups giving him any help? >> guest: somewhat, yes. as i said, laura ingraham came into town and came in to tennessee and shelled a rally for him. there has been some other outside groups that have done some on the ground campaigning

for him. but he really has not gotten the kind of support on the ground support a lot of people thought he would get in tennessee. >> host: as far as point and things of that matter, where does it place senator alexander? doesn't look like you went? >> guest: it looks like he probably will. there has been a lot of independent polling done. there was some polling done back in the early spring and those polls all get senator alexander a comfortable lead. there has been a lot of independent polling done since then. the campaigns themselves of course have their own polls. senator alexander's campaign, one of their internal polls a couple weeks ago showing with a 30-point lead. mr. carr thinks the race is much closer that but most of before following this race would expect senator alexander to win and probably win comfortably. >> host: who will he face if he wins? >> guest: there are two democrats in the race and

they're both attorneys from the knoxville area. and their names are terry adams and gordon ball. but the democratic primary has not really gotten a lot of attention in this race him and most people think that senator alexander is probably going to win a third term. >> host: michael collins, edition for there's a race featuring, a lot of challenges. toast on about the race itself but what goes beyond this race when it comes to the represented himself. >> guest: this race has gotten probably more attention than any other house race, at least outside of the tennessee. the reason for that is that he is in for the lot -- the fight of his life. is run against the republican by the name of jim tracy, a member of the tennessee general a similar. he is a state senator. the reason this race is getting

a lot of attention is because of some personal revelations about congressman daschle is personal life became to light just a few days after he was we elected in 2012. he had gone through a very difficult divorce a number of years ago and his divorce records were unsealed just shortly after he was reelected and in these records they showed that the woman that he was married to at the time, this is not the woman is married to now but the woman he was married to at the time had gotten a couple of abortions with his approval. mr. desjarlais is a physician and he also admitted in the divorce papers to having extramarital affairs with a number of his patients to all this is real problematic if you're a pro-life family values congressman as mr. desjarlais has positioned himself. now, people have kind of written him off and assumed that he

would lose in the primary. but in the past few weeks his campaign has shown some signs of life. he outraised mr. tracy in early july with them would indicate he does have some momentum. and voters came into his have kind of give an indication that they're in a forgiving sort of mood. so some people think that the very may well pull this race off. >> host: michael collins is, washington correspondent talk about primary day in tennessee. thanks for your time. >> guest: thank you. spent watch live primary coverage of today's races in tennessee along with highlights from recent debates in the hawaii and virginia primary contests, pleasure phone calls. all that tonight at eight eastern on c-span. >> while congress is in recess this month, c-span's primetime programming continues at 8 p.m.

eastern on friday with the western conservative summit in denver. saturday robert gates, condoleezza rice and madeleine albright on the situation in ukraine. and sunday on q&a, ronald reagan biographer edmund morris. spent c-span2's booktv this weekend. friday night at eight eastern with books on marriage equality, the obama's versus the clintons, and the autobiography of former mayor of washington marion barry to be. saturday at 10 p.m. eastern on "after words," bob woodward in his former counsel to president nixon john dean on the watergate scandal, and sunday afternoon at five and any parts, president and ceo of the new york public library shed light on the library's past, present and future. booktv, television for serious readers. ..

in the previous panel we talked about one thing every pilot has in common regardless of the equipment they fly. the color of your uniform or what you carry in the bad.

that's your medical ticket. there's onthere is one other thl share this justice and trickle to our jobs and that doesn't care what, where or whom you fly and that would be the airspace that we are operated. the system itself is as dynamic as the flights within it. the technology changes both in the airplanes and on the ground policies and regulations change, even the very nature of the aircraft in the airspace changes. the airspace system has to keep up with all of that. the last panel covers a wide variety of views on why or if that system needs to adapt to changes. the panel moderator is no stranger certainly to this audience. it's our own captain shaun cassidy the first vp national safety coordinator. one of several senior representatives on groups helping to define how we can

collaborate to ensure airspace in which we fly is not only the safest but the most efficient it can be. take it away. >> good afternoon everybody and thanks for hanging in here with us. i think that you're going to find this panel interesting and have some great conversations and for those of you joining us for the panel you are going to be rewarded with a great presentation from a former astronaut that is a member of space and one of the things we are going to talk about in the panel might even plan on some of the comments. one of the biggest challenges i have sometimes it is if i look out and see a group of ten pilots i ask them what is nexgen, sometimes it is difficult to even define the

term but you can't define the term how do you know the role in driving the programs forward? my answer is it simply the application of policies, procedures that drive up the efficiency over the transportation system and does so while maintaining or enhancing the levels of safety and security. and even that might be difficult to do but even more difficult is how do we get from this while the system still has to be a 24/mac operation like changing the tires on the car speeding down the road but we do it. we've heard o the panels discussing how they are getting the job done safely and securely. we've heard discussions of the threats and countermeasures and listen to the faa provided their perspectives on the key safety issues and the leading aviation medical experts provide

information on occupational safety issues affecting the flight. for the final panel our group of experts will discuss the flight plan, the promise and even the potholes of the system. since the introduction into the national airspace system over 50 years ago the world certainly changed dramatically to read aircraft have more passengers hire faster i'm a further and consume a lot less gas than the platforms that we flew not long ago. compare what the triple seven does right now versus the boeing 707. the number of annual aircraft operations has also increased exponentially that th with the f accidents has dropped to an all-time low and the number has never been higher. as pilots we are always looking for new pilots centric tools

that improve the ability to 88, navigate and communicate but don't overwhelm us and safety. we want to do can be used expeditiously and won't be rolled out and easily assimilated. however, when you think about it, the system that we are in right now much in the way they did decades ago. we still use the surveillance and do most of the control in the voice communications and we still receive the final most of the time. despite the increased demand for the capacity and efficiency of the system still must continue to evolve. the past 15 years, nextgen has been a game changer in the navigation into the control communications and the

surveillance which has come into focus especially in the wake of the malaysia 370 tragedy. most of the progress that has been made in the oceanic and other low-volume traffic areas have not really been exported into the more extensive change that has to occur. change is an inevitable byproduct and new equipment, procedures, training, corporate culture and on and on. they will not work looking forward. change requires strong leadership and change requires moving towards the more nimble corporate model that is able and willing to make tough decisions in a timely manner and execute on them. the panel will look at p8, the good, the bad and the ugly and discuss where we spend, how we got there, where we need to go into the impact on the various

industry at the lessons that we have learned along the way. let me give you a little bit of a reference point for the reason i chose the word potholes in the title. i grew up near new york city and whenever we would have to drive anywhere we would basically have to have a bucket full of claims to go through the tollbooth. it was a very tedious process going from tollbooth to tollbooth and if there were an accident or traffic delay it was a very tedious thing and now i can get out of my car in washington, d.c., have a transponder that is on my windshield and go through every single one from here back to my old house without ever having to stop once and fish out for money. in my home state of washington in may of 2013 there was a bridge that collapsed over the river and it basically severed a portion of the interstate five

between seattle and vancouver. now obviously that was an urgent enough situation that the quick and timely decision was made and executed and it didn't take months or years or a decade to do something about it. they had a replacement stands up and please one month later. the question becomes if we understand the urgency of when things happen on the ground and if we understand the potholes to the bridge collapses and everything else and we also understand the importance of the aviation industry, how can we not figure out a way to explain the importance and to execute moving the programs forward? to join me in discussion from your left to right i am pleased to introduce marla with the transportation and she has essentially played the role of

switzerland in the conversation this afternoon because what they do is they look at the multimodal transportation issues and grab the panels of experts, very knowledgeable folks and they look to provide recommendations. bob has been a transportation expert for many years especially the funding issues and he provides a report under the foundation banner his legacy goes back many administrations and the advisor for the transportation issues and funding. in the business association and then number two another tremendous expert in the world of aviation transportation.

in fact it was a plant in 1981 by george bush as an advisor on how we could modernize the air space system and as the legacy continues many high-level boards to include the advisory and of the council. on the left is my good friend and he has 27 years of the front line 18 c. experience and is also mr. nextgen. he's basically the focus claim for how we bring the policies and procedures and execute on them in a line of business and of the air traffic organization. we are blessed to have all of these folks here and i would

also note that no and i serve on the board of advisors where we are making sure that we carry our perspective on the pilot control center solutions to the nextgen air space modernization. i'm going to have a seat over there and join everybody and then invite the opening comments and while we are listening to the speakers provide their opening comments leads to be a favor, listen carefully and if you have any questions please start writing them down so we can continue this conversation moving forward. the transportation policy think tank one of the most effective things that we are able to do as a research institution is identify larger transportation policy challenges and as bring together key stakeholders and industry leaders the best avenue

for word. a couple of years ago we came to you in this industry and asked you what you thought your biggest challenges were created through this conversation we found that the biggest issue was the implementation of nextgen. so we had a working group to gather wood for the panels that have joined together on this working group. the group began to discuss the barriers in the implementation, and we found that modernization was inherently linked to the funding and the government structure of air traffic control. as you know, u.s. air traffic control operated by the federal aviation administration and is funded in the trust fund into the general fund. as a governmental structure any subjectsubject to the annual appropriations, along with a firm and procurement -- government procurement and they are the only service in the

government is operate that is oy the federal government. it is also the only service that is operated by the same entity which is highly unusual. as we evolve into the structure, we've been experiencing inconsistent federal spending as well as what some may say too much government intervention. discussing these challenges, the working group agrees we should look into how potentially read foreign the system. we begin by looking at how the system came to be and what it is today. we also looked into the types of reforms that have been made multiple times since the 1980s. we found out that the attempted reform was stopped by the stakeholders not agreeing on what they wanted that reform to look like. also extremely and presented the research is looking into what the international peers have done. we have found that many of our peers over the last 25 years

reformed the system and they've been able to implement modernization technologies such as nexgen at a faster label than we've been able to. we've identified three primary doctors. the first structure is keeping the air traffic control operation of the federal government raised the national government but separating it out from regulation as the case. another and probably the most prevalent model has been the government corporation. this model can be found in germany as well as australia. in the final model that is only in canada is taking air traffic control operation entirely out of the national government and having operated by a nonprofit organization. currently a working group is looking at each of these models and discussing with ourselves, the stakeholders, what you feel is the best way for us to move forward and with model would best fit your needs. the aim of the group is to help

make the division and help you then bring the decision to the table. think you. >> i've been working on the policy and air traffic control reform ideas about 30 years and have reached a number of conclusions. about three years ago and other group in the business roundtable approach to me and some other people to create a working group that's been working for about three year period to come up with a proposal for an air-traffic corporation and we've had a lot of discussions with the sql verse. we've concluded there are at least five important reasons why we need to do the reform and number one almost everybody agrees on is the funding situation has become very unstable and unpredictable and this has led to triage going on right now. it's basically treat watching

investments because there isn't enough money and you can't plan was money will be there three years from now, five years from now so people cannot plan on equipping and knowing there's going to be a system that will give them benefits. another problem that is quite severe for the faa as a federal bureaucracy as what we might call the technology lab that does cycle time tends to be longer than the innovation cycle into the avionics so that by the time you finally get to the decision and implement something is no longer the state-of-the-art and this is a real problem for the system that needs to stay in the state-of-the-art and be a leading system. another problem institutionally is that the way things work when you pay attention to the source that provides the funding and even though the user taxes pay for most of the cost of the system, the money actually comes

from congress. congress appropriated every year and they always give a lot of directives of how that money is going to be spent and they limit what you can do or mandate what you can do and they have determined this amount of oversight because they find tvs could define it as taxpayers money. that means the de facto focus of the faa is a lot focused on congress and on doing and policing the congress because that's where the money comes from but the focus really should be on pleasing the customer's. and doing what they believe is best so that obviously is another governance problem. finally, the question that marla mentioned in the operations being in the same entity is recognized in most other parts of the u.s. government as inherently a conflict. it's recognized by a decade ago something that should be

organizationally separate and almost every leading western country. the regulation between the safety regulator and the provider of the air traffic services between the operators of the airlines and the mechanics and the pilot licensing. so with all arms length. as said, over 50 countries have created some form of air-traffic cooperation and of those that are corporations are self funded. the others have been depoliticized. it comes from those directly to the corporation that is in the governing corporation with a private nonprofit work partial as in the uk. and that we focuses the organization, but customers want especially if they have a model that represents the customers and stakeholders as the

governing board which is especially the case in canada but it's also true to some extent in the uk. so, those are the kind of things that are going on in other countries. the business roundtable is working on fleshing out the details of the plan and actually the proposed draft of legislation that is intended to be ready by next year when they start hearing the reauthorization. so we are very actively working on also involved in the project and i think they are working very much in parallel with a different focus with the same objective of creating a sustainable system that really works for the aviation customer in the community. and so i look forward to all of the discussions that we will have. >> thanks very much. over to you. >> thanks. i appreciate the opportunity to be here today and to be with the community to work together on a large number of groups are in --

around town. i think this is one more example of that. sean mentioned in his opening remarks the important of nextgen and while i think there may be some disagreements on the panel i think there is complete unanimity in terms of the goal and that is getting to nextgen. the business aviation community has been a primary advocate for nextgen because we see it as an essential part of the united states staying the world's largest, safest most diverse and efficient air transportation system in the world. when we start on the path, we have an idea. we had a contest that said if we can go from the ground-based navigation to the satellite navigation and from the analog

communication that we would open up a lot of opportunities, opportunities that allow us to enhance safety that would enhance the situational awareness, we felt that we could reduce our environmental footprint by having more direct and we felt we could increase the capacity of the throughput and efficiency of the system by having things like more precise spacing. all of those concepts i think that widespread support as we move towards the development and implementation we began to recognize one of the things we

agree on as we want to make sure that we do this evolution the court does keep moving and going forward and it doesn't stop and it doesn't go backwards and before today that u.s. has by any measure the best air transportation system in the world. it's the largest, the safest, the most efficient and complex and most diverse. how do we need to evolve and where do we need to go from here? how can we best get there? we need to follow some of the models that have already been discussed and certainly the aviation and the entire community is looking at all of the alternatives trying to evaluate them. but as we do that, again, we

don't want to lose sight of where we are and how we get here and how we preserve this is the opportunities that we have for everyone going forward. for this business aviation and access to airports and access to the airspace is fundamental to the future of the industry. and for a lot of the small towns and rural communities all around the united states that depend on the business aviation for the economic development and for jobs and for humanitarian left, that access is vitally important. one of the reasons business aviation has been so aggressively in support of nextgen, is because we have seen historically that when airspace and airports get congested, business aviation tends to get squeezed out. some of you may remember back when midway was largely a generation airport and the same

thing with lauderdale and san jose there's a lot of places where the airport dot crowded and business aviation began to be secondary locations. we deleted important for the future of the industry that we be able to have access to the airspace and airports and the transition from the ground-based and satellite and analog to digital is fundamental to getting. not to go backwards, we know that there are challenges associated with the current governance structure and we also know, however, that over the past 15 years the funding stream has been remarkably stable in a very unstable time. think back over the last 15 years the united states was attacked on 9/11 and we stood up

to the entire department of homeland security and we faced one of the greatest recessions in the nation's economic history and there've been a few things like hurricanes and oil spills and other challenges that have been out there through that entire 15 year period funding has been flat or and has gone up every year. of the general fund contribution has been robust. so as we look at alternatives, we want to make sure that it is an evaluation that we understand where we are all trying to go and we understand how we can get there together. but i think that sometimes it is easy to look and say let's do something big and bold and radical that may be the appropriate response but there may be a better alternative and we want to have that conversation to make sure that when we have meanings five years

from now and ten years from now we are always able to begin by saying today the united states has the best air transportation system in the world. i-india boards and everything else i think especially when you look at a board like the folks coming in from a much more kind of performance-based objectives as opposed to a lot of other groups you have the folks sending a particular piece of a quidditch or something which is, you know, something that prompts them to stave the position and to draw a little bit of a line in the position. but i think the one thing that we could all agree on is we have to do something regardless if we just refine the system that we have and take a much more kind of transformative approach. but that in mind knows that the

epicenter where the changes happening. these are one of the agents of the change management and to make sure the car stays on the road doesn't back off or fall off while changing the tires. >> it is a blessing to be the representative of those 20,000 members making sure the car doesn't stop. i've been doing less of watching the car. individual cars and watching more proverbial the freeways into the system but with that, the presentation and the opportunity to represent we want to talk about the modernization aninto some of the policies that we see now and that we believe that we will experience in the

promise and having never been one to shy away from the potholes for starters i will talk a little bit about the beginning and the end parts of the panel. it doesn't take long as aviation committees to distill a very short order that there are two basic perspectives in the stories of the modernization as soon start to look at it you see that the scenario that plays out the perfect timing with last week dot e. eight where we had this incredibly robust desire in the community to participate and then this one where we have a group of union pilots that operate those are the two ends of the story that say how do we modernize the system that has that much diversity that represents a very significant

potholes to modernize. it's very resilient and a very robust and fairly efficient. if you look at a cost to operate the current system versus how we are compared around the world we are very proud of the fact it's efficient and cos in a cost pere and capacity perspective so that's one aspect of modernization is how to maintain or sustain those components to be there far into the future or you look at the satellite-based capabilities. we can't have all of one or the other. we need to somehow find a way to know the capabilities of the pieces of both components of the system. ais it, again the tale of two

stories depending on what perspective you use. so let's talk a little bit about the trajectory or nextgen as it is currently branded. there've been efforts over the years whether it was free flight or 2100 or 2,000 something unbecoming to branding. on the ground-based site of the microphone i'm sure that it's critical to communicate the most membership on the site and it is what is the role of the human element in the far term of the mass modernization one of the great places to look what is it that they are going to ask the

pilots of the future and that would rely on the research today and significantly it doesn't get a lot of air time and they had essentially zeroed out to the line item for the self separation so what they are saying is there is an initial concept of far term nextgen super high levels of automation and control sitting back and watching and controlling by exception for the pilots coming back and just being more systems managers. there is a deep recognition that there is a strong human world and the term of whatever this modernization effort is called now or will be in the future. in the different modernization

plans of the worldwide service providers around the world they all adhere to an essential block upgrade a system that accepts the fact there's going to be a large amount of human interaction for many to come so it is kind of a trajectory of the modernization considering the potholes it's a good trajectory and it is a lot of promise but is built so it goes to the last part of the panel which is one of the promises. one of the things that has been very vocal is let's take those things that we know that we can do and do them now let's fast forward the benefits and approve that we have transformed to the implementation and b buy some te or bandwidth to do those more aggressive things down the road and i would say that the initial batch that was cast across the

airspace for herbal was from the low space to the high-end commercial high-density operations in the research and development put on the table for the implementors significant benefits in each one of those areas and to what we have done is things like the turbulence and where we see the significant throughput in their runaway they call it a throughput increase at some places so taking that into doing it everywhere that it's relevant. we talked about the potholes and we recognize we have a foot in each one of those depending on regardless of the perspectives were we see a very robust

aviation system in the u.s. but we participate in. the low density but other than that whatever we decide to do as a country as we move forward is to ensure all of those levels are protected and maintained so the stable funding when it comes to modernization is absolutely article when you start to talk about the more complex programs that will take five or six years we have to stabilize that funding but the primary concern for us and our membership and the members in the room operator on the flight deck and of those wonderful people last week that we have to recognize this is a diverse system that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world so we have to do it very methodically so again i look forward to the conversation and your questions.

>> i want to challenge something eddy said about stable funding. if you look back five years ago but the official projection for what the capital budget is for the modernization would be by this year by 2014, it was a billion dollars more than the actual amount they have to work with today because of the overall budget pressures. it may be stable in the constant levels but not at the level that was planned for the serious investment in the modernization and that is why they are having to do triage and say we wanted to do this and this but now we have to focus on the things we do near term that have short-term benefits because we don't know what the funding is going to be next year let alone three or five years from now

into the difference between that and the corporate model however it is organized as if the moneyy is depoliticized and it's a revenue stream than the air traffic corporations like canada and the air service can issue the bonds as electric utilities and the railroads and airports do and fund and finance the capital programs and get the money in place where it is needed now and then pay for it out of the ongoing revenues as they experience the benefits and that is a model how the airport do the capital programs and how almost all of the other service providers these days. we are the country still trying to find the major capital modernization program out of the annual cash flow that is only determined by each year's

appropriation process which is limited and constrained by the overall situation in the federal budget. look back 15 years is fine but you have to look forward and say what is the condition of the federal government? how much is going to be available? what kind of across the board sequester and remember it's a ten year program so the cuts are not in effect last year and this year but after this eight years to come unless the congress can come up with a new overall budget fix we have a very serious environment in which we are trying to modernize and get the benefits to keep the system and in these areas we are falling behind. canada has nationwide and it will be a decade before we have that here. there's things like the

satellite base invited to get that off the ground and there is no way that they could make a decision because it would have to have appropriated funding there is no way an organization on the federal budget can do that so there's things like that we need to take into account and that is what is driving a lot of the effort and a big change, the funding organizational change in the minor reform. >> there are several ways to look at the funding issue and certainly the internal projections of how much money they would have right now. i went back 15 years as far back as the 97 reauthorization debate

and there was a lot of conversation about the funding system being broken and the general fund going the way that it wasn't sustainable but if you look at that each and every year if you had said i bet the budget will be what it was before and potentially go up a percentage or two it would have been accurate despite an incredibly uncertain environment which as i said before involves the war and recessions and so forth and that is not to suggest what we have is perfect. but a lot of times people make it sound as if they can't function. >> seeing what the other countries are able to do but they are smaller and they haven't had the same kind of

history that we have been historically the technology leader. that is questionable today and it's questionable looking forward in the next decade ... are not inventing new things but being able to implement them and get the benefits from them i think is open to the question. >> we see the products get manufactured and they need to be certified and we have had some challenges after the faa but a lot of what we are talking about when we talk about the air traffic control one of the things we have seen in the business aviation community particularly as we have become more international in nature and that is certainly true the last 15, 20 years wa what i consistey in hearing from the operators is when we fly round the world we

come back and concluded that from the point that we leave the pavement to the point of the wheels touch back down, the united states is the system that we think is best operated. i want to be clear where we are today doesn't mean that is where we will always be. it doesn't mean we shouldn't change in default and that we've been at the forefront of articulating the need to default. i just want to be cautious it seems to me that maybe with regard to funding it may have worked better in practice than one would have expected in theory. it has been pretty stable for the last 15 years and that doesn't mean it doesn't change that but it also doesn't mean that we can take it for granted that the funding won't be there.

>> there is an interesting anecdote that would help assuming that is in the format. >> by evo did it to what the others are doing worldwide from the perspective and what boeing is doing from the factory perspective let's look at what is happening if you take a look at maybe those people would characterize the most advanced performance-based navigation base system and most people would point to australia and if they've been done a great job d playing a significant level and they are reformed that tension between the regulator and the

operator they are intense now to the point they are about ready to revoke the certificate so from the modernization perspective if the funding is stable or redeploy in the technology on a systemwide basis at the right pace. if you look at the highest density my understanding is they are shy or they are not as aggressive and so i think there's certainly things we could do better and faster that we have to be careful not to rush to fall forward and my point is both stable funding and the relationship between the ms p. into the regulator doesn't guarantee success in the technology. >> i want to follow up a little.

>> sometimes it is easy to blame the congress on funding issues. but i also think that when we started the process of nextgen, there was a lot we didn't know. there's always been the sense we are ready to do it now it is just a matter of funding and as we have gone through some of the panels at an industry level, we recognize we need to be careful here. we don't necessarily know. and so in some cases what we have heard from congress is we would like to nextgen we want to be supportive of nextgen. what do you need to make nextgen a reality and i'm not sure that the faa or the industry together have consistently articulated that. i don't think we've always said if you give us an extra billion dollars here is what we would buy.

when following the great recession that was a stimulus package and there was talk about what do you want to see in the stimulus package and while we were able to put some things for word i don't think anyone in the industry felt we were as crisp as we would like to be located to be certified and paying them on the dates uncertain. there is also a lot of learning that has been going on. a lot of folks out there when we look at these potential models the first one is basically the status quo model where we have business as usual or the very end of that where we say take that function and have it still live under the federal agencies

of it is basically the first option. the second option is the one that the government corporations people just -- pda, first respond. so it changes some of the architecture of the governance and the decision-making process, but it still doesn't result of the funding issue because it is buried in the appropriations of the authorization and everything else and then that tends to drive us to the third of model which is the fully privatized model because of the way to see capital elsewhere rather than having to go. is there another option that is kind of a hybrid where we could have the architecture, we could have the decision-making and still have a line of funding

that is not subject to does much handling on the part of the government? >> i don't think any funding model like that has ever been demonstrated to work that far. i mean, we've had a number of trust funds we certainly have an airport trust fund is that actually were not created to pay for the entire system, so it is working as it should. partially better funds but every other trust fund in the country they don't work -- they haven't been sustainable. so sitting here listening to this i was thinking is there another way to fund this i and e federal government? one option potentially is the president for having appropriations are couple of years in international public broadcasting company committee of appropriations two years in advance. but that might not solve the problem either. we set appropriate the money to come three to five years in advance but are we going to have

enough funding to be old to modernize the system? and we still wouldn't have those capabilities at that point either. >> the key thing is having the revenue stream that prevents and facilitates the bonding for the large-scale capital program. it's what every airport in the country come every year for you guys fly to has as a matter of routine and so does every other utility including the tba which is governance, but i think that is the fundamental thing. doing large-scale capital programs out of the cash flow especially when it has to come from appropriations in a very uncertain forward budget climate just as a recipe for problems, continuing problems whereas on the revenue stream these are investment bond rates. air traffic control there isn't competitors. it's a monopoly. and so that communities is where do we sign. if we have any kind of a credible bond proposal they would love to fund this and give you the money and have a

reasonable assurance of annual debt service payments. why not take advantage of the structure like that when it is readily available and works and other countries and industries in the united states that are also vital central infrastructure including the airports. >> there's an awful lot of precedent it's not like the thing off the cliff to the unknown. we know this works for the toll roads, too, which i do a lot of work on. so i think that is a key part of the reform conversation that's going on is to learn from that kind of an example. here is another part of this though. when they addressed the meeting of the project one of the things he pointed out to us is the question of access in the remote airports and stuff that canada has to confront also and there

are two ways to go on that. one is to ask the government for an exquisite subsidy because those don't pay for themselves. the other would be to cross the subsidized internally and charging off to the customers that can afford it to cover the cost of the things that don't pay for themselves and they decided it very deliberately and specifically because if they ask the government for the partial funding than all the controls that we are talking about that are a problem are reporting to the congressional committees and having the budget approved and you can't ask for what the omb will approve having the gal looking over your shoulder and the inspector general as opposed to the governing body of the customers and stakeholders saying yes and no about the policy. as soon as you have taxpayer money you have all of the oversight. when i talked to th talk to ther officials and retired ones who

can speak more freely they say again and again how much the top management is taken up by responding to all these overseers and constantly they are required to not only go and testify that every time the inspector general gives a report they must by law to report to the recommendations. that takes a lot of time. and we talked to them candidly off the record and they will tow you that. that's not how you should be running a business. it really isn't. stack i'm sure a lot of people are going to after these comments. just a reminder we have about half an hour left for the panel and i want to make sure you realized you have the opportunity if you have a question but i'm going to keep the conversation because i'm sure that ed has something to say. >> i think it is probably clear to everyone but i want to make sure that it doesn't get lost when we talk about the bonding authority we are talking about borrowing. we are talking about borrowing a

sum of money today and paying it back over a period of years. usually when you go to borrow money, you want to have a very specific idea of what it is that you are buying. >> absolutely. >> that's why i think it's important as we talk about nextgen we understand where it is that we are and where exactly do we want to do this? if we are going to borrow a billion dollars, $10 billion, what are we going to die, what is it going to get us and on what day? because the users are being asked to pay for it and if we look at what we have today, let's say that the faa has roughly $16 billion, 13 of it comes through the user taxes, about three comes from the general fund appropriations. assuming that the system has $16 billion going forward, next year, that means if we privatize the system than the $3 billion

goes away and we have to find a way collectively to pay for that $3 billion that used to be in the government and then we have to look for the additional money. we need to be pretty sure i think before we as an industry take on $3 billion to breakeven and an additional money to move forward. we understand what is it that we are trying to buy and when are we going to have the benefits, what are the other costs associated? it doesn't mean it's the wrong way to do it, but again the idea that we will just borrow our way out of it and pay for it later is something that we need to be cautious about. >> but there are two things that i feel i need to say, and we can talk about the deeper nuances on the borrowing and a biting piece and maybe we can get back to that. but i would say the simple answer to that question is is there another model and there has to be another model. there has to be. and i believe that firmly.

there has to be another option at least to discuss. there are two words that convince me. and when is my ability and the other is responsibility. on the reliability side and you look at the mitigation of the cost to mitigate and what of the legacy infrastructure that's how out there. you probably pretty rapidly approach to funding liability to mitigate the legacy components that could equal the fund and there's a reason we had the superfund to do some cleanup stuff so that is the environmental responsibility or liability. there's insurance liability. to look at the cost to end sure the operations there is not one insurer in the world and maybe not even a conglomerate of all of the insurers in the world ready to take on the rest of ensuring that the operations. and other liabilities. third would be pension liability. no stranger to anybody in this

broom and iroom and if you lookt associated it is fairly significant so all of that has to be factored in. responsibility going back to the site one of my alma mater's down in the airport in the middle of the field in the museum there is learning that's going on and the responsibility of the relationship between the air traffic controllers and the student pilots we covet that relationship on both sides. if you look at the stuff that happens as a result in the canada model where there is a co- located airstrip it doesn't cost anything to land on the lake so more often than not they are choosing to land on the lake to save the fee or if there is significant weather in the northern part of the u.s. and we pick up the phone and say can we divert some of the flights was going to cost and they decide not to. so those are the negative pressures on that responsibility

side of the air traffic system and pilots working together to operate as safe as possible. i will turn it back to you and say we need to think deeply about all of those nuances. >> i have a few more questions that came up. we could do this for another couple of hours. >> thank you for the opportunity. we covered the satellite navigation which of course is essential to nextgen. one element is the civil funding for the gps monitoring has been cut repeatedly. this session though we haven't caught into the conference communities the senate cut it more than a third. it's going to delay the monitoring as i understand from what i've been told. my question is twofold. one, what have you are organizations done if anything to monitor this because without

the monitoring, you don't have the signals after the monitori monitoring. and for the current structure are the organizations looking at this issue and have you weighed in on this issue and for the future structures that you're talking about, how would this kind of funding be integrated into what you're talking about correctly coming through but it is not happening from the congress and in some cases it has been actually delay the ids aa itself because of the pressures. >> there isn't probably much more than that that would be characterized by any in the room and i would pitch it back to the panel, but essentially what i hear you talking about is the alternative position of the allegation and the timing if we were going gps-based system and you have the significant liabilities associated with that and we start to look at the

fragility of the satellite system where it is the solar flares or missile attacks and those types of things. so, there are some takes occurring in the legacy infrastructure versus the satellite-based infrastructure that is assessing that because we still have a robust legacy ground-based infrastructure and the timing peace or th piece ore on the alternative to that dependence if you would know on the satellite system is not as significant as it would be if we had already shut down 90% of the ground-based stuff. so my guess is that those decisions, that balance this is okay we need to find the back and be sure that we are going to get what we need out of the satellite-based system, those types of things are more easily delayed because we still have this legacy infrastructure to fall back and say we are going back.

.. is that if we have very stable signals, various it -- very stable satellite signals communications signals, command control signals. the only way that will lead vances if we make sure we protect those signals. after all, we have wireless pilots. there is no one inside the aircraft to do something if there is some kind of a system failure. looking systemically, one of the

things that we have also been participating in is making sure that if we go to a more space space-based system away from a ground-based system we still have some of those legacy pieces of hardware still in service for when we have the solar flare activity. for one, we have something that takes down the signal or disrupts it. and that is why we are never going to be fully only space-based next gen. we are looking to a strike the right balance. as far as funding, we are always playing a game of triage trying to push priorities forward an advocate for what is nearest and dearest at this point in time. otherwise if we keep saying we need money here, money here, money year we will lose our effectiveness. one of the questions i have -- was there a follow-up question? >> monitoring is part of a new ground system. the grant system is essential to

the new gps three satellites. have to have it. and you can have a grant system that is monitoring, but the monitoring is essential for the aviation component for next gen. so it is going to be happening over time. it is not like it is tomorrow. if you change the structure discussing the financing structure, are you going to incorporate this kind of funding for this? it is essential to make next gen work. >> look at the investment priorities of the reform worldwide. they are generally -- the pacing has become where it is, legacy infrastructure, the plumbing strategies. i think a logical answer would be, yes. they reconcile that. maybe more rapidly than the federal government would because reliability, but they would reconcile. >> one of the questions i have

talking a lot about funding, but one of the questions i have is when we had this sequestration and when basically you had a 5 percent cut that basically got put over a smaller chunk of time which essentially turned into a 10 percent cut. for functional vision and the faa research and development of facilities and engineering. the problem became that you had a consistent 10% uniform cut. and anybody who has had experience managing any kind of business with their household budgets, if you said, hey, you have to cut 10 percent of your finances, you want to take an percent of the mortgage, the car payment. you might skip plans keeping a something like that. so in one respect we talk about the overall amount of money, but in the second one we talk about the use and management of the money. can you comment a little bit

about lessons learned from that experience? >> well, i would say that i would be curious to hear the perspective outside looking in. i would say watching the faa executives wrestle with the difficult decisions that there were forced to make was not pleasant. i would say the current administrators, very accurate and pointing out that the faa is a wonderful operational organization. our business. we and not a real great planning organization. i think you would naturally defaults if you were in his shoes. i emigrated every minute of every day. naturally is given the choice of a strike that 10 percent from modernization which would be the

entire budget. just totally abandoned anything toward modernization. by. >> and not sure it does to the heart of it. it was not any more pleasant for anyone else. any thoughts? >> well, i think flexibility is important. we had an opportunity last week to be in oshkosh and tear michael huerta talking about the faa and the upcoming faa reauthorization. i think he laid out three key priorities for the faa as they move forward. stability, funding, flexibility. and i think that case to the point you're bringing up there. that is, you want the ability to prioritize when you can't do everything. and so i think everybody understands that. i think the feeling would be,

let's make sure when we are doing the prioritization our guiding principles are right and we are putting the money where they can best serve the broad community. certainly flexibility will be a key part of the reauthorization debate, and i think that is appropriate. >> another problem that hardly ever gets mentioned is that there is a looming -- you heard maintenance. several billion dollars according to gao and growing. that's one of the things that is easiest to put off, when funding is tight. you have operations that you have to maintain and a trying to do as much modernization as you can. deferred maintenance, let's leave that until another year. it builds up over time, and eventually that has to be dealt with. there is no plan that anybody that i know is aware of doing anything about that except to open that things will be better somehow in the future. that is not a plan. >> but i think that would be a

very good reason to come to the table and started working. after 2013 you have to find a better solution to be able to the fix the systems. >> absolutely. that was the one thing. joking about the mason-dixon line and everything else. the one thing the group clearly agrees about is we have to do something because we cannot relive that nightmare again. a situation where we are relying on 23 continuing resolutions. we just simply cannot. we certainly cannot have this situation where we lay off a bunch of controllers in and start lowering the capacity. >> a lot of small towers. >> right. >> i believe you were first. >> thanks. john rosenberg with delta airline safety committee. i think my question might be directed more. and having to do with equipment as far as next gen.

it is my understanding now that faa has put out a mandate for aircraft owners to buy 2020 we have to have airplanes equipped. then of course it places a pretty good-sized burden on the airborne side of it many we have to it -- you know, from a financial standpoint equipment manufacturing standpoint and, of course, the avionics shops to gear up for the influx of situations -- installations. my question is, the ground in of it, will you guys -- you know, based on all i have been hearing about funding issues and i hear the word languishing, will the ground end of it be in sync with the requirement to have that by 2020 along with the airborne part of it? would you be ready for that? >> that is a great question, and it really, the mandate has been a driver, a strong driver of the

atc modernization side. so we look at -- there is currently -- it is embarrassing to admit that we have 98 facilities still currently using monochromatic raider screens. and so we send our best and brightest individuals through universities and these incredible labs that have three-dimensional 360-degree three dimensional equivalent to a high category simulator. then we deploy them to a facility with a black-and-white tv. so it is a monumental lift to force and updates that will be provided in to the automation system. this is certainly on pace to not only meet that but the well at it. and the results of that will bear fruit in many different areas.

an example would be the constant tension between radar surveillance and restructure. could we put them closer together? well, you have to think about a million pound airplane. you don't want to get too close. but one second out dates and what we call fusion where you start to look at areas of terrain. you start to see what's going on toward the ground or eliminate caps and radar coverage. some very exciting stuff is going on. i tell you, there are people working really hard on the atc side to meet those. >> thank you. >> you bet. >> hello. air traffic service. speaking of deferred maintenance , is there any more talk about combining air traffic control facility? some political roadblocks to that. >> yap. in that technology really is driving some wonderful

opportunities. they're is a reason why facilities were located very close to the radar site. so this deal independence of the technology then allows you to have a discussion, and honest discussion unconstrained about the right density. the deployment road map. so politically what we have said as a union, an organization representing employees is now is the time to have that discussion maybe even five years ago. we have been participating for that long because we are literally resetting a generation of work force. and so if one of your political roadblocks is i have two kids in the air and school and my wife says we're not moving, now is the time. a lot of guys that have gray hair like myself. a lot of incredible young individuals that are just starting families. no better time politically to

have that discussion. the discussions are ongoing. no way you start to come back to . [laughter] the constituent situation and the political representation. were all leninism. that was a real political constraint. members of congress really hate to give up a facility that has to people. jobs in the district. they live and breathe to protect those. the technology now makes it possible. particularly since so many of these facilities have some much deferred maintenance, there really should be replaced. if you replace all of them will waste a fortune, and we can't afford to do that. coming up with a sensible consolidation plan that puts all new facilities it really makes sense.

now is the perfect opportunity to plan that and to hire people with the idea that they are going to need to be flexible and where they're going to work five years from now. >> maybe ed has something to add to it from a business perspective. i was the facility representative at the southern california track on which is no small facility when the wild fires burned right of and a janitor literally save the day by turning on the sprinklers. the irrigation outside. we were there for three days, deployed to a nearby location and maintained. about 80%. that type of -- we have to maintain that type of resiliency there are just too many things that could happen. regardless of whether i'm thinking public-private from an investment perspective, it is not easy to justify buying a bunch of new stuff.

investing a significant amount of money to evaluate all of that. your return on investment, those are heavy, heavy less. your talking 20th 25 years before you see a return. >> the interesting thing, even congress has agreed that we need to move forward with consolidation. if you look at the last faa reauthorization bill there was a section that called on the faa to come forward with a consolidation plan. i think everyone in the industry supported. we recognized exactly this conversation is going on, that we need to build for the future. that may mean taking steps away from the past. it means consolidation. and i think the part that is missing on this is exactly what that word means. how we get there from here, the plan, the cost, the timing. i think all of us emerged --

have urged the faa to move forward smartly, shared with the community and let us become advocates for a. we are hopeful that will happen. >> i had the good fortune to actually visit one of the first u.n. facilities set up in salt lake. it was pretty phenomenal. from what they call the host system, the legacy system, the monochromatic scopes and the physical piece of paper going back in going to a fully digitized system where she were to have a crisis like that, you can basically swish the full control function from one facility to the other one which is just an absolutely phenomenal thing. i think it's another great example. some of the redundancies and resiliency is that are being built in through the use of this technology. >> that core infrastructure going in his critical.

fortunately is flexible enough that we will be able to leverage of later. the definition of next jen and where we are on the continual. i think i would say if you think about the 20-year cycle and that $20 billion taxpayer investment, we are about ten years in and about five or 6 billion, five and a half billion. we have a lot of great core infrastructure, of great opportunities. what next and when and how type of thing is probably going to be the biggest argument. it's based on prospective. >> i wonder if a safety case can be made for happier and safer controllers at a facility that is not dark all the time. if you have ever seen some of the scandinavian air-traffic control facilities it looks like an ikea with hardwood floors and a fireplace. >> there is certainly a level of culture that was required were developed because of that real low light situations, but you

are right. once you are exposed to options generally you see some incremental benefits and then they start to pick up a little bit. once we deploy those skills or monitors we will see those changes. >> thank you. >> you hit on incremental changes. and one of the big frustration is that sometimes we all share his the fact that we keep on talking about next jen with this kind of mental connotation like it's something that is futuristic. maybe we don't spend enough time focusing on the employment of changes and improvements we are making right now. i guess getting back to the opening conversation that we had only start off the panel, were talking about funding, decision making and everything else. are we actually making enough incremental change right now

through the deployment of the technology, the changes in the policies and procedures? the operations, taking a bunch of different airports at of physical nearby location and harmonizing. that is happening right now. they are realizing benefits. we can talk about equivalent spacing. you know, options there to create the density, maintain the safety. are we doing enough right now that we should really just keep on riding the wave, if you will, or do we have to go back and look for more? me. >> i have a lot to say command of very enthusiastic. certainly by no means an infomercial. >> i tell you -- i'm sorry. what i say is one of the kind of fatal flaws, what was your perspective going into it.

what is the attention span of the average person in the u.s. right now? about the men and aft. it's really tough to maintain enthusiasm in relation or to maintain perspective. so i would say there are incredible efficiencies that are which really at our fingertips and could be populated or could be dispersed throughout and then immediately. do you do that no and abandon some of the more advanced concepts or how you balance that ? >> i think to your point, whether it's reducing vertical separation, one day we flip the switch. we effectively double the capacity of our transportation system. flight level 290.

so change does happen. it is happening. we don't always talk about it. we don't always highlighted, but, frankly, the american dna is never to be satisfied with where we are. and so i don't think anybody is satisfied with where we are today or with the pace at which we got here. we want to do more. we want to do better. i think all of us here are committed to doing what we're talking about, structures that may give us the best opportunity to move forward. and doing that, my point has been, let's do it -- let's not lose sight of how far we have done and where we are today. but we have, in our dna that we want to go farther, faster, safer, more efficiently. we want to be the world's best. hopefully dialogs like the ones we're having today will keep us there.

>> take a little spin on that. another kind of change that i think has been very important, very positive in terms of next jen, and that is the next gen advisory committee. this has brought great diversity of aviation stakeholders to work together and reach some kind of workable consensus on a whole array of issues. and i see that process as something we really never had before. in all the history of previous air traffic reforms we had different parts of the aviation community in disagreement on various aspects. and i think the first time in my memory at least that though whole aviation -- figure out how to work together for the greater good. you know, it does not necessarily get everyone's first choice, but you reach a workable compromises that move the ball

forward and everyone can live with. and i see that as a kind of prototype for what estate called a board of directors to be. obviously it is not going to have this many people, but a much smaller number of them representing everybody to do the same kind of process but at -- policy, not an advisory, but a policy-making body for a reformed air traffic system. i think there's a lot of learning going on in that process that shows, this is really not inconceivable. it might have looked like it to and are 15 years ago. we have seen it work on this kind of scale. >> i would just echo what they have to say. i think that we have. in the american dna we can do better. seen other countries do better. i don't think we're ever

satisfied with that. >> my experience from working and being on the subcommittee really lines up with what you just said. my sense is that when i first got there we had a bunch of different stakeholders looking at 35 different core programs and technologies associated with next gen. it's basically like asking 40 people what kind of pizza they want. you get 40 different answers. that was the frustration. and of these folks here. it was not a technical issue. was not a technological question . it was a prioritization question. and i think looking at the context of what was happening in the agency is important as well. we had an interim administrator wearing a bunch of different hats. we have some folks kind of coming in and out. and now we have a full-time administrator, a deputy administrator. one of the core focus is is next

gen. we have the assistant administrator in charge of next gen who opened up a conference, and we have decisionmaking actually happening to the point we have funneled in toward for core priorities for next gen. and i can see a palpable difference between the first day i walked in and started getting immersed in the stuff to the present. sometimes in and day money is always going to be important, but sometimes it is more important to discuss how you use the money. technology is important, but sometimes we are dealing with non technical barriers to move this process forward. so at the end of the day it comes to stable funding, vision, and having folks to have that dna that get the attitude that make sure that we continue to be the safest most high-performance air-traffic system in the world.

we're talking a lot about norwegian air shuttle and all kinds of things, maintaining our competitive vantage. and my neck of the words it is equally important. we do so with regard to how we manage our airspace. so i have exactly one minute left. we will have an on-time arrival so i don't get in trouble with anybody. i am looking forward to our next speaker and the closing ceremony. please join me in giving a hand to this panel. i hope you enjoyed it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thank you. very good, very informative, lots of areas to cover. okay. we are to our very last final presentation of this year's health air safety forum. i am going to turn the podium

over for introduction of are closing speaker. >> all right. still pretty crowded. i like that. thanks, chuck. we are going to go now from a discussion on modernizing our national airspace system to a man involved with modernizing our space system. thought before i introduce garrett i want to thank all of you for being here this week. in addition to our pilots, i want to thank our guests from industry and from government. we cannot affect change alone. we need to have continuing positive relationships to make sure that the necessary safety and security in piloting systems advances it put into place.

at thank you for joining as and sharing your thoughts during this forum. i talked repeatedly this week about the influence of just one person. how many of our safety and security advances started with just one person having an idea or a problem or a fix. we all work together to achieve greater results, but we need that one to start. started by one man who had a goal to grow a garden on mars. today that goal has evolved and grown into one of the preeminent private space transport service companies in the world. our closing speaker today, garrett, is an important part of spacex focused on astronauts safety and on that mission

insurance. what each of you are doing for flight operations garrett is doing for flight operations and space -- spacex now. he is at the forefront of making sure commercial missions go off without a hitch, coordinating with both the faa and nasa. when spacex finally puts that garden on mars garrett will be directly involved, i'm sure. i am confident of it. he is a former astronaut as well as an awkward not having spent time both on the international space station and in the aquarius underwater laboratory. so he has been everywhere on, under, and over the earth, you could say. and now he is here. please join me in welcoming garrett to the stage.

[applause] >> thank you. thanks. it is really an honor to be here thanks for that great introduction. thanks to larry garber for inviting me to come here initially. it is great to be back amongst friends. we go back to our days at nasa. and as she is doing great work for you. we miss her. she was a great champion for a lot of the work we're doing. the path that i am about to talk to you about, commercial space, really it was her efforts that led us to where we are today. and hopefully we have a bright future. it is great to be here. also great to be back amongst pilots in addition to the other things i have done.

i own a tiger that i keep. all right. it's a great airplane. i keep it at hawthorne airplane. next time your on final approach lax and see a tagger struggling to maintain glide slope to your left that might be me. it's fantastic to be here. so if i can go to the slides, there we go. i started off at nasa as an astronaut. i flew a couple missions but the first one was sts 123 on endeavor. i went up to the space station and stayed there for 95 days. i have to tell you, it is kind of a bummer because if you stay for a hundred days you get a patch. it's true. i'm not making this up. you get the patch. some 95 days space shuttle

discovery came up and said it's time to go home. how about yaupon board and we will head home. i said hey, five more days. just go around a few more times. no one will notice. no, mission control says you have to come home. and did not get my patch. nasa said, hey, we have another mission for you. fourteen days. ninety-five and 14. i can get my patch. sign me up. all go. i got on. we went back up into space and went back into the space station i came home all excited and ready to give my patch. nope. it has to be in rhode. so i still don't have my patch. it's not like i'm better and better anything. [laughter] i'll get over it some very.