at the time it has taken. >> please answer my question. >> what we are doing is working through a large number of comments and ensuring we can develop a rule that will stand the test of time and that will deliver on the benefits that we want to do. people are working very hard in getting it done, and, but we have a lot of comments. it's a complicated rule. >> so it's a complicated bill. there's a lot of comments. there's always a lot of comments. washington draws lots and lots of comments. it's you, it's the airlines and the pilots. there's nothing in me which understands why this is taking so long or why you're -- don't talk to me about lots of comments and it's a complicated process. everything is that around here. >> mr. chairman, i am very committed to getting this rule done. >> and i understand that. but what are you doing about it? so far i've heard there are a

lot of comments and it makes it more difficult. now, so you -- how do you wade through this and get it -- don't wait until 2015. lots could happen by 2015. >> mr. chairman, i will do all i can to direct my staff and provide the resources to get this done as quickly as possible. >> well, let me just make it known for the record, this is going to seem to be an unfriendly comment. as you know, i support your candidacy, but any federal person making testimony before any committee of congress has to have that testimony reviewed and cannot give it knountil it's prd by the office of management and budget. that's the same with yours. that's what you're sounding like. and i just can't live with i'm going to do everything i can. i want to know what it is that you will do to make sure it will happen.

i'm sticking on this thing. 2015. >> mr. chairman, once a week i meet with our safety organization. on a regular basis. and we go over every rule that we have pending. the questions that i ask are, where is it? who is involved in it? what are the challenges that we have? and can you assure me that the -- do you have resource problems? are there legal challenges that you're running into? it creates a forum for us to work through what are very complex issues. i share your frustration. i want this to be done quickly. >> well, air traffic controller fatigue, 4,000 violations. we read about in the "washington post." required nine hours of rest. my question, i think i'm going

to get the same answer. what's the agency done to address these violations to make sure we don't hear more about this? i understand you're standing up for an air traffic control tower or in one of the ground based, or underground-based places and things are difficult and people get tired and all the rest of it. nine hours of sleep helps. but i just -- please tell me what you are doing to make sure that this happens? i don't think that's that complicated. >> it's not. what we did last year was we put in place a requirement, as you noted mr. chairman, for nine hours of rest between shifts, and to ensure compliance with it -- >> does that nine hours include the time to get home? >> it's a nine hour rest opportunity. that's correct. >> so that means maybe 6 1/2 hours and then an hour and a half commute? >> it could mean 8 hours if you had 30 minutes each way. >> right. >> what we have done since then

to ensure compliance is we put it -- we conducted a review of a large number of clocking in of controllers. we determined that while the majority of controllers were in compliance with the nine hour rest period, we did find that there were some controllers that were clocking in a few minutes early. in most cases, they were a matter of a couple of minutes. none exceeded 30 minutes. in light of that, we at the agency in conjunction with national air traffic controllers association last week issued guidance to everyone in air traffic control, reminding them of the nine-hour rule. we are also now updating our time keeping system so they cannot physically clock in until the nine hour requirement is met. and we will continue to focus on this. >> my time is up. i thank the chairman. >> thank you. i just want to go over the order of members because people have come in and out of the hearing room. we'll next call on senator thune

who's the ranking member on the subcommittee followed by senator begich, if senator boxer reappears and senator lautenberg than my other colleagues. senator thune? >> thank you. i want to thank you and the ranking member. and mr. huerta for appearing before as a nominee as next add stra min straiter of the faa. contributes about $1.2 billion annually to the economy and employs 14,000 people. i think we have to acknowledge faa operates the largest and safest airspace system in the world. as we know, since the mid 1990s, the commercial air carrier accident rate has fallen by nearly 80%. achieving that low of a u.s. air carrier accident rate while transporting almost 800 million passengers per year is no simple feat. having said that, even with high rate of safety, improvements can be made. last month's letter from the

office of special council which cited 178 faa disclosures, 97 were safety related, is a startling reminder that safety is a top priority. agency faces challenges including reducing regulatory burden, streamlining operations, maintaining professionalism in its workforce and implementing the modernization and reform act. i appreciate, mr. huerta, hearing from you about your ideas and how to address those many challenges. i do want to quickly get your response to something. we have a bill, senate bill 1956, the european union admissions trading scheme prohibition act that senator mccaskill and i have others have introduced which gives the secretary of transportation the authority to take the necessary steps to ensure america's aviation operator is not penalized by any system unilaterally imposed by the eu. we had a hearing about this recently in front of this committee. i'm wondering what your thoughts

are whether this would help in negotiations with the european union. >> thank you very much. the european union's efforts to impose unilaterally aren't an admissions trading scheme, something we're very much in opposition to. we feel the appropriate forum to work through this is the international civil aviation organization and we've joined with many other countries to express our opposition and to make it clear to the europeans that we oppose what they're trying to do and are prepared to take action as necessary in order to respond to that. ikao is the appropriate forum and all options are on the table. what the europeans did, while supportive of the goals, this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. and we want -- the europeans know that. we continue to work on that. >> wouldn't having a legislative solution give you additional

leverage in confronting the europeans on this issue, in dealing with it? >> i think the europeans are well aware of the universal opposition that exists in this government to what it is that they're trying to do and we continue to communicate that to them. >> at the same time, you've got this thing already in effect, essentially, and lots of american air carriers covered by it. and in many cases having to pass those costs on. it seems to me, at least, that the legislation would at least provide temporary relief from this until such time as you can work through the appropriate forum. that's ikao, to get the right resolution in place. so it just seems to me, at least, that it gives you one more piece of ammunition, one more tool, if you will, in dealing with the eu if you had congress on the record and giving our air carriers in this

country some relief from what is an unfair and violation of international law and sovereignty in the united states. >> senator, as i mentioned, i think that the fact that there is such widespread opposition in our government is quite significant. we are committed to working with congress on how best to respond to it. >> all right. well, let me ask you one other question quickly. there's a recent ig report that highlighted that the faa has not yet established total program cost, schedule or performance baseline for the next transformational programs. when does the industry plan to do this? we went do complete information on how much they're going to cost the american taxpayer. >> nexgen is critical for the faa to get right as we deploy the transformational aviation system of the future. my own background as leader of a large technology company i think served me well as i've gotten

into the faa. one of the first things that i did when i arrived at the agency a couple of years ago was to direct the establishment of a program management office with the sole responsibility for delivering programs as the major area of focus and the same time strengthen our nexgen organization to ensure they had the resources and the tools they need to make tradeoffs to establish priorities and to ensure that the agency is meeting its nexgen commitments of the six transformational programs, three have been baseline and we have and are on track for meeting the commitments in those baselines. we're trying to find the appropriate balance and how we mitigate risk based on developing the appropriate levels of information so that we know what we're getting into before we establish the baselines. we're very focused on delivering benefit and hitting our targets and i think we're making good progress. >> do you have schedule for the last three? you mentioned three that you are -- >> i'm sorry? >> the other three of the six

that you said have not -- that are not baselined. when do you expect -- what's your -- with regard to those? >> we'd be happy to meet with your staff and go over each of the programs and where they are. >> all right. thank you. my time's expired. thanks. >> senator begich? >> thank you very much, mr. huerta. let me ask you a couple questions. one on avgas as you know. general aviation committee from my state, others, it's very important. the rural aspect of it. the epa issued an npram on avgas. weave heard a lot of comments. i'm sure faa has also heard a lot of comments. and our concern is, and as you know, faa is ultimately responsible for certifying the type of gas that goes into aviation or to airplanes. and we are, i want to make it very clear, that we are hopeful that there are no moves by epa or faa to phase out avgas until

there's truly an appropriate, economic drop in substitute fuel. can you comment on that? >> senator begich, we share that concern. avgas is unique. it is the remaining leaded fuel but it meets the unique requirements that exist in general aviation. and the faa completely understands the importance of having reasonable alternatives before any effort is made to phase out avgas. i'm committed to work to ensure that doesn't happen. >> when you say reasonable, economical is part of that equation? >> certainly. >> okay. good. because for us in alaska it's truly, it's the highway and the sky. it's critical we have the right ability. when we converted a much higher level of leaded gas to unleaded which was our vehicles, it took many, many, many years to do that. it wasn't overnight. i'm worried that epa has a different view of life here that they can flip the switch and make it all magic.

i'm glad that you have made the statement you just said because i think you understand the faa component of this and the aviation component of this. thank you very much. will you keep us, at least our office informed, kind of if there are some milestones occurring that we need to be aware of? i guarantee we'll hear very quickly in alaska and we want to make sure we're on top of this issue. >> absolutely. we'd be happy to. >> thank you. the other one is, we have this battle on a fairly regular basis, the administration and the 13 budget had $100 user fee on g.a., general aviation users. i honestly think it created another system that doesn't need to be created. we have a per gallon tax assess, it's already an existing system. it works well. to great another system, where now it's $100 user fee for certain g.a. users i think it's

going to be burdensome and create another bureaucracy within faa. the reality is we already have a system that general aviation supports and always works with faa on. so can you comment on that? i know it's a budget issue. i'm sure omb has their views on it. from a practical implication of how you implement it, it seems like it created another system that we don't need when we have a user fee tax people have been accustomed to and have been supportive in the past of adjusting when necessary. >> senator begich, the president put forward a proposal with intent of finding better ways to share the cost of the operation of the aviation system with the users of the system. and that was why it was included in his proposal for the fiscal 2013 budget. the appropriators have not seemed fit to act on that, and we understand that how we look at the long term financing questions of the faa is something we need to do very

much in consultation with congress and we look forward to continuing that conversation with you. >> great. i know from our end we'd obviously be happy to engage with you on that. and i think the general aviation folks, aviation in generals, always happy, if there's a process and know the value comes back to the users, in this case, they're always willing to sit down and work these issues out. i look forward to that. do you -- i just want to follow-up what senator thune talked about, if i can, very quickly, you talked about the baselines, three more to go. if you were to say, if you could give a percentage of where do you think you're at with full implementation of nexgen in the level we asked for in the faa reauthorization bill, where would you say -- are we at 10%, 20%, 30%? do you have a fair -- in all the pieces -- i know there's multiple pieces, but if you could take a 30,000 view looking down, where do you think we're

at? >> i think it's important to look at if in the context of there being both a geographic component to it, as we move it out across the country, and then there are varying levels of capability that it enables and we're making progress in both of those areas. we made a commitment to the industry to deploy one of the foundational technologies. technology known as automatic dependent broadcast -- automatic dependent broadcast for surveillance broadcast, ads, independent surveillance broadcast. we're on track to deliver the ground infrastructure by 2013. this, as you know, is a technology that we first deployed in alaska. >> that's right. >> and what it gives a pilot is much greater situational awarene awareness. it gives us a very precise view of what's happening in the airspace system. so we're well on track to delivery there. this year we're giving a particular focus on performance-based navigation. more precise routes that reduce

for airlines the track miles flown and enables them to reduce costs on fuel. this is a high priority. we're trying to reduce the deployment time for individual procedures from what would order narlly be five to ten years down to three and sometimes two years. we're doing that in metropolitan areas all across the country. later this summer, we will take a first step in deploying our data-com program, a transformational technology because what it addresses he ee head-on is principle challenge for efficiency and maintaining safety. that is to ensure that communications between controllers and pilots are accurate, precise, and delivered in a timely fashion. and so we're on track for the delivery of that -- beginning the delivery of that program later on this year. we're making good progress, but i have to stress, it's a long term delivery program that we have. we have milestones that go all the way out to 2025 for the delivery of nexgen and it's

important to us that we hit those and deliver the benefits to the users of the system. >> thank you very much. thanks for your testimony. i'll look forward to supporting you in the final. i just want to say thank you very much for coming here. thanks for spending time with me yesterday on all the other issues we talked about. >> thank you, senator begich. senator lautenberg? >> thank you, chairman. mr. huerta, my recommendation to you would have been when senator boxer finished her introduction that you say, i plead my case and let it go at that. because you're getting some pressures here for things that i really don't think are justified. we have been fiddling around with nexgen technology before the turn of the century. and company after company, the best names in technology, aviation technology, were

included. i was in the computer business before i came here. and the fact of the matter is that there was failure after failure after failure, with billions of dollars spent. and so why we want you to push along, hurry it up as much as you can, but i think on balance that it has to be recognized that you're not responsible for the delay but you will be responsible for the management of where we go and we look forward to that. i think that we're fortunate that you're here willing to serve at this job because you're not going to get lots of pats on the back no matter what you do. the air traffic control tower at newark liberty airport is critical to the entire aviation system, to the flying public. but the tower is constantly understaffed. i received many assurances from the faa over the years that this issue would be remedied, but the

problem persists. we're still short a significant number of fully trained controllers. when might the be fully staffed? >> senator, as you and i spoke about, the staffing range for new york liberty airport is estimated to be between 32 and 38 controllers that would be appropriate to operate the facility. we have below that number in the 20s of actual certified controllers in the facility. we have an effort under way this year to transfer a number of additional controllers into the facility and plans for 2013. the other thing that we have done with new york liberty is to in recognition of the unique complex airspace that we have in northern new jersey and greater new york, we placed a tower simulator in that facility to provide the ability to do more on the ground training for controllers in that particular facility with the unique

airspace requirements that it has. that went into place earlier this year in march and i think that we're seeing some benefit associated with that but we have to focus on that. the new york area is critical for us and new york liberty is part of that. most of the delays in the air traffic system have as their starting point the new york area and so focusing on ensuring that we have the appropriate technology, the appropriately trained staff in place is something that we have to continue to focus on. >> you were asked a question some minutes ago about what your performance we might expect if there is less funding. can things get better with less funding? >> clearly funding is essential in our ability to deliver the next generation air transportation system and this committee and the congress have

been very supportive of those efforts. but we in the agency bear the responsibility to do it as efficiently as possible and to ensure that we are prioritizing those things that deliver the benefits for the users of the system. that's a conversation that we will continue to have. we're all in government. we all understand the fiscal challenges that we as a country face and the faa needs to be part of that conversation. >> the faa authorization, which was signed into law earlier this year exempts certain next generation projects from environmental review as senator thune was raising that question. the exemption has raised concerns in my region that there will be more news as a result of next gen implementation. how is the faa going to provide

communities with an opportunity for public input. that's a complaint that we hear about regularly and really in some instances very angrily as you can imagine. what can we do there? >> the specific provision that you're referring to deals with environmental reviews related to the development of navigation procedures. and we are working to figure out how best to implement a process that ensures that we're doing whatever environmental process we need to do as efficiently as possible. now having said that, the real intent behind that is why do these things take so long to develop? there is great environmental benefit in getting navigation procedures out as quickly as possible and the benefit is that you reduce fuel burn, you reduce track miles and you reduce noise and so getting them into the system as quickly as possible is generally a good thing.

what the legislation suggested is find ways to cut down that time and so we're looking at the full scope of what needs to be done there. everything from the development of the procedure to how it is designed, the environment process, how is it deployed, operationalized and how do we evaluation how it is doing what it was originally intended to do. that's the process that we're trying to cut from five to ten years to two or three. clearly the direction we received from congress in the environmental area is an important factor that we're focused on but we're looking at the full scope of what is needed to be done here so that we can cut this time down. >> chairman, i close with this if i might. i would like your commitment that you are going to devote the time and energy to solving the newark air traffic control problem that we wrestle with constantly. >> absolutely.

>> thank you. >> senator? >> thank you, chairman. thanks for the good job you're doing. as you and i talked about and as i said when we visited the other day, it is probably hard to find a group of 535 people that fly more or think they are more experts in air travel than members of congress so it makes your job harder than a lot of the other regulatory jobs. i've been impressed by the way you've been doing it and i hope that we can maybe moving permanently into a position allows you to finalize some things in a better way. i have two or three things i want to ask about. on the pilot flight rule, at one point it looked like to me like the faa was moving toward having the same flight rules for passenger pilots as cargo

pilots, which i didn't think was necessary and eventually you decided that wasn't necessary either. is that the position the faa will continue to have that there's a different -- the cargo pilots are under the rules that they have been working under and you're moving the passenger pilots to other rules, is that the status? >> when we finalized our pilot flight duty and rest rule at the end of last year we exempted the cargo industry from the rules as it was enacted. we encouraged the cargo industry to voluntarily opt into the program and to do the same things that are required in the rule in order to manage fatigue within the system. we met with the cargo industry and we continue to urge them to abide by the provisions of the rule. >> but you are not requiring them -- you are requiring them to abide by the provisions of

the previous rules, right? >> that's correct. >> on the cost of that -- there was a wide range of -- the faa thought that cargo companies complying with the rule would cost about $30 million and they thought $600 million. have you looked more carefully at that cost benefit and how they could have that big a number and how that number could be that widely divergent? >> we're evaluating the cost benefit provisions of the cargo portion of the analysis that we did and we brought a third party in to advise us in doing that and we expect to complete that review in the coming couple of weeks. >> would you send me a copy of that review when it is available? >> certainly. >> this cost benefit -- i think there are going to be more and more pressures on cost benefit generally as regulation is becoming a bigger and bigger concern at all levels and maybe you all can figure out how to help set the standard even for

how to make that work. on the faa training and conference center, there's language in the senator appropriations bill that you find leased space for that center. you were a long way down that path last year and didn't get there at the end. what's your ongoing plan for how to look at the future of how you will conduct those training facilities and moving people in and out of one training facility to get their training? >> senator, as we stalked about when we met, the faa when we were evaluating our training needs, we had developed an approach which included two components. one was to enter into some sort of arrangement, a lease, for a facility and then the second for the development of the training itself. in light of the fiscal

challenges that we were facing, as we were doing our work on that project, one of the things that we had some concern about was entering into a long-term lease, a ten-year lease given the fiscal challenges that we knew we would face in the future. at the same time, however, we were hearing that there were alternative models to conduct training where we would contract for services from entities that would provide both the training and the facility. and so it was in that spirit that we suspended work in looking at a training facility. all of our options are on the table as we look at this review going forward of what is the best way to conduct training for the faa's needs. we're a technical organization so training is critical to our mission. as i mentioned, the proposals that we had received on the training facility