this is for fx 13 because we're not done with fy14 but i'm sorry, okay, let me preface this by saying the charts -- the numbers that i'm going to show you have been rolled up because the national guard can provide assistance to state authorities this a couple of different ways, all right, you've got in title 32 as a primary purpose of the operation, in other words, the guard would be ordered to duty to provide a response to, for example, the oil spill, you know, the deepwater horizon or a hurricane. that would be the primary purpose of that operation. that's either through a statute, a pre-existing statute such as that that authorizes a civil support team or by it's by the secretary of defense authority. for title 32 the secretary of defense has to approve the use of the national guard in title 32. the second category is as an incidental benefit to training or military operations.

for example, if we have a truck company that needs training on how to drive trucks, it is -- it makes more sense if they're driving trucks that they can also, for example, haul goods and water or whatever to benefit perhaps a relief effort than to just take their empty trucks and drive around in circles on a military base and benefit nobody but themselves, so, a lot of assistance is provided as an incident to training or operations. and the distinction there is that it has to be a training operation. the primary purpose is training and the incidental purpose is the assistance. even though to the recipients of that assistance that may be everything in the world to them. but, again, for lawyers, you know, you have to carefully make sure that it's captioned in the right terms because otherwise you run into fiscal issues when you're using training money for nontraining purposes and finally have state active duty.

and that's per state law. and state law is a little different. normally speaking the troops are using federal equipment. they're wearing their uniforms so it still says u.s. army, u.s. air force. but they're not federal actors, and they have no federal status. and there's complete control by the state chain of command. so that the federal, for example, regulations that would govern them, would not apply, to state active duty. so with that in mind, i want show to you some numbers which may astonish you. >> frank, i apologize, but we are at the end of our time. >> okay. >> if we can put a cap on it there -- >> yeah, absolutely. >> -- and certainly be available for questions. ladies and gentlemen, your

moderator's time management skills stink, we are literally at the end of our class. but i would ask, if i may, for those of you that can stay, afford her of the courtesy of at least five minutes of your time. then i'll ask the panel members, we have eaten up our q & a time, i'll certainly remain. and i'll ask panel members to remain at the end if you have questions. dawn zoldi is the staff judge advocate at u.s. air force academy. she has been a judge advocate for 21 years. she is an associate professor, assistant professor, associate, at the u.s. air force academy. and is also an adjunct at the judge advocate general's school. dawn is going to speak to you about the emerging and important statute authorities and as they relate to the domestic, operational employment of drones. dawn?

>> thank you so much. and thank for your patience. here, i thought i had 10 minutes of fame and i've got 5. i'll speak quickly. so to tie this all together, we heard about the strategic overarching concept of the inner agency contribution to disaster operations and we heard about the dod role. we heard about one component of the dod, and the national guard. what i will focus on in particular is one particular asset that mr. mchale said is controversial. uavs or what we call rpas, remotely pelleted aircraft. now why am i calling it that? is she calling them drones? now, i don't call them that because in the military it is harrah to call them drones. in 2010 the air force formalized rp training and made rpa rated pilots, just like the ones that

fly manned aircraft. and words matter. and it makes a big difference because they're not just unmanned. they're actually piloted by certified pilots, so that's important. what can rpas bring to the fight for lack of a better term in a disaster response in i can tell that you they weren't used in sandy. but i can also tell you, because i was part of that effort, as was colonel millers, that they were used during the california rim wildfires. it was pretty exciting because for that particular effort, fires were so persistent, so widespread, that putting a helicopter, or manned aircraft up over those fires is extremely dangerous. not only that but the loiter time for those manned aircraft was very minimal, whereas, an rpa could provide consistent coverage. what we are talking about is what we call iaa in the military

which is incident, awareness and assessment. this was incredible. actually changed the entire battle rhythm of the firefighters in california. they could actually work through the night and through the day for the first time and it really helped put that fire for lack of a better term, in a box. so rpas are one of those assets that really have a unique role and also a great future, i think, in this particular area. now, i'm going to talk for a second about privacy and security, because i think when we talk rpas, that's the thing that jumps out at people. that's the biggest concern. okay, you are looking at the wildfire. what else are you looking at? what else are you videotaping up there? let's talk about that for a second. because what you need to understand about rpas is that they are very high level approval authorities. and azdi solis can be the first

to attest to this. unless you are train awning a military base, if you're out there training with something with an rpa, it will be set for approval. that's how high the approval level is to utilize one of these particular assets. the other thing you need to understand is not only do they have to be authorized, by the proper approval authority, they also have to of course comply with the law. and when i talk about the law here, i'm talking about in particular intelligence oversight, policies and procedures. and those derive out of executive order 12333 and the dod has implemented that through directive called 5240.1-r. and that protects american citizens from being spied on, protects privacy. there's four pillars over this regime. that's collection, retention, dissemination and oversight. and so the intelligence oversight policies this apply to all of these operations, even for something like california

rim wildfire and iaa would apply via intelligence oversight policy. how are you collecting, where are you collecting, who is getting to see it. how long are you keeping it, where's it going? and oh, if you don't do any of that right, there is an oversight regime that goes all the way up to congress and, of course, to the president. that's the kind of protection that our employees, when we utilize these particular assets. i don't know if i've got like one minute left or what. i can take five more? okay, great. so that's my pitch on rpas. and i think the great benefit that they can actually add to these kind of responses but i want -- since i have five minutes, i will take those five minutes to talk very briefly about the emerging legislation and how i think it could actually impact the ability to perform these operations with rpas.

there's 86 bills on the floor last year. and in various states. 42 states have introduced 86 different bills. i don't do public math, but that means more than a couple bills per state for some of them, okay? normally these apply to law enforcement. what they tell you is when prohibit the collection of evidence or information with the use of rpa. that's the general premise here. there is exceptions of course, the largest one with the warrant. another one that would be highly relevant to the arena would be with, in cases of imminent threat to life or imminent danger to property. that's a big one, too. the reason why i even mention this at all, and i know some you out there heard my talk earlier at fundamentals account of terrorism symposium. the reason why it's important is because, you know, it has -- if these are passed, they could

really have effects on not only dod training, but certainly, my colleague over here, the national guard, unless there's an exception status laws will apply. and the guard actually has a number of these assets. so it's an interesting development in the law and how it will ultimately effect a whole myriad of operations. including diska operations which is very much up in the air. but is something that i think is worth noting and continuing to explore, which i plan to do. so without further ado, i know i'm standing between you and lunch, and that's a very dangerous place to be. so, thank you for your time and attention, i'll go ahead and hand it back over to mr. mchale. >> terrific. grace under pressure. we've been granted a five-minute reprieve. for those of you with personal commitments and must leave, please do so. i ask you to file to the outside so you don't block camera coverage.

for those of you who do have questions we can stay five more minutes and would welcome those questions. please come forward to the microphone, ask your question and direct it, if possible, towards a specific panel member. and then we'll bring this to a conclusion, joe tells me, at 12:40. questions? >> good afternoon. thank you for your presentations. michael dougherty from ratheon. first bringing a broadband network to bring communication to state and locals, i don't know if you track that as part of your jobs. if you have, i'm kind of curious what you think the biggest challenge might be for bringing interoperable communications that can withstand disasters to state, local and the national network. if you have no opinion, it's been nice talking to you. >> if i may, i will direct that

to bob, then mike. bob, because he's got overall responsibility. mike, because you may or may not be familiar with the package of communications gear on that subject that the national guard has. bob? >> thanks, paul. i'm not completely familiar with the issue. but i know that national guard in particular ntsbs have tremendous capability but you're talking beyond what dod does and to local communities and other federal agencies that may be communicating at that level. whether it is law enforcement, fbi or other organizations. that i'm not familiar with, and i apologize for that. >> the national guard has an interest, of course, in being able to communicate with the whole spectrum of first responders. and i know that our civil

support teams have a hardware and a software package that allows basically anybody to talk to anybody because whatever frequency, or modulation, it can then be translated and shot out on a different channel, for example, so that the different first responders and the different agencies can -- it's transparent to them. they think they are talking it directly to each other. so that's really all i know about the system. but it's interoperable communications -- i know there's been a lot of work done on that because of the various incompatible systems that have been in use. >> within the first few days of the response to hurricane katrina, one of the top five unmet occurrences was a lack of interoperable communications. as a result of that, the national guard went forward and

brought forth 80 something packages of patches that happen to be proud by this gentleman's company. where you can take a handheld motorola and a radio that might be used by the 82nd airborne or national guard, you patch it in through this company and that allows communication from a civilian first responders to a national guardsman or military personnel. there is also a ban designed by nav air where you can plug almost any radio into that system. and by patch it will convert that radio's communication in a way that is compatible with all other communications platforms, even though they might technically be quite dissimilar. that was a lawyer's answer. >> i think it's called jics, joint inner communications system or something like that. >> after huh, the guard bought -- i was briefed on it by the secretary of defense, about 80 of these packages from this gentleman's company. there are others out there.

it is quite remarkable. handheld motorola that a police officer might have on his belt, you plug that net into this match. into this system, the original is called acu 1,000. and you can communicate with all other systems on that patch. even though they might have completely different hardware on completely different systems. this gentleman. >> good morning. commonwealth on the northern mariana islands. i notice that miriana islands and samoa haven't joined the pact. aside from communication, are there any other hurdles that would prevent them from joining that? >> i believe that the -- there are probably attorneys in the room that can answer better. i think it's a legislative

impediment. and there is something that can prevent two territories from establishing mutual aid agreement. the nature of a compact between states is what requires congressional approval. in order to avoid unintended consequences. but i don't think there is anything that would prevent territories from establishing arrangements or appropriate agreements with others. and from a practical objective cmi and samoa would be providing that assistance. for states it is one thing because they are contiguous geographically. we're talking about the federal highway system or moving things. or aircraft moving things in. i think where the territories are concerned, it is a different logistical challenge. potentially less useful. >> to my regret, this will have to be our last question. >> hi. have the recent economic struggles impacted how states align with federal support and

the ability of the federal government to give support? >> yes. here's the bottom line. obviously, there is a lot of downward pressure economically, for budgets, at all levels of government. and so, states and their political subdivisions, we have seen an increase in request for federal assistance, both inside and outside of the disaster declarations, to help offset the impact on budgets. i'll give you a great example. when it snows, there is a need to do removal of snow and ice from the roads. one would expect that most states and local governments would plan and budget for that. as a policy matter we generally don't provide assistance for road treatment unless there is a record or near record snow fall. that policy is meeting with a lot of resistance right now because even below the record or near record snowfalls, local governments are struggling to handle their snow removal budget or ice removal budgets.

and bob's point about climate change, without putting too fine a point on it, we are seeing ice storms and other unusual weather events in places where those things didn't happen before. there is also an event of it not being expected. not occurring enough that you have a budget for it but recurring enough that you have to deal with it periodically. at the same time, local governments need additional funding or seek additional funding from the federal government, the federal government's budget is contracting as well. s there appropriation of dollars. very appropriately which side of the aisle. regardless of what side of the aisle we're on, funds are sitting unused and waiting as contingency and saying maybe that's not the best way to spend scarce dollars right now. that continues to be a challenge and i think it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. >> our system of checks and balances works pretty well, but in a domestic crisis there are

challenges that arise when someone says, who's in charge? what we try to do, during the course of this panel is present to you a better understanding of how the various agencies within our federal system of government and within the inner agency, coordinate within the system of checks and balances and have unity offest in achieving a life-saving and timely response to a domestic event. thank you all very much for your time. [ applause ] join us tuesday here on c-span 3 for programs focussing on health care issues. we'll show you remarks from cvs' pharmacy president. and a house hearing on medicare fraud. all starting tuesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. plenty more live campaign

2014 debate coverage coming up tuesday on c-span starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern. an arkansas senate debate between incumbent mark pryor and republican congressman tom cotton. recent polling has this race as a toss-up. right after that south carolina governor nikki haley versus vincent sheheen and tom ervin. that will be at 9:00 p.m. eastern. then oregon governor kitzhaber. meets with republican challenger dennis richardson. that race is listed as leaning democrat. see it live tuesday at 10:00 p.m. eastern. also on c-span. the c-span student cam competition is under way. this nationwide competition for middle and high school students will award 150 prizes totaling $150,000. complete a 5 to 7-minute documentary entitled the three branches and you. videos need to include c-span

programming show varying points of view and must be submitted by january 20th, 2015. go to studentcam.org for more information. grab a camera and get started today. now, part of the annual conference hosted by the air line pilots association from washington, part of the faa and other agency discuss unmanned aircraft safety, and need for global flight tracking and flight assessment. following to malaysia airlines crashes. this is almost an hour. okay. if we can go ahead and take our seats and get started. now i would like to welcome our webcast audience to join us this morning. thank you for joining in with us. let's go ahead and begin our next panel.

♪ okay. as i mentioned earlier, i'm going to change my role certainly a little bit and i'm going to moderate a discussion with our friends from the faa, transport canada and the international civil aviation organization otherwise known as icao. it's been said that safety is never instate. those of us in the safety business know it is ever-changing and our work is never finished. we can never delude ourselves into thinking we've got all of the answers. i know most of you know that. no flight is ever routine or just like the previous one. to some degree there's always a unique set of conditions and circumstances that present a challenge to otherwise safe and uneventful flight. we have to ensure the overall

system is able to detect threats and alleviate high risk. industry and regulators around the world are working towards a common vision whether it is in areas appropriate for the use of safety data, safety management systems, voluntary safety reportings of reporting programs or the safe integration of unmanned aerial systems or as we like to refer to them, remotely piloted aircraft. there is always still work to be done. so i'd like to hear the perspectives from our regulators and our colleagues from icao and these subjects and what the industry has been doing right along with their vision for the future. in areas that need to be addressed, not only here but in north america throughout world. i would like to introduce you to this very distinguished panel. to my left, john hickey. he is the deputy associate administrator for aviation safety at the federal aviation administration. to his left is mr. martin eley, director general, civil aviation at transport canada.

on the far left, is mr. mitchell fox, chief flight operations at icao. you can see their full biographies in the back of your program. so let's go ahead and begin. >> okay. i'm going to cut right to the chase. we're already hearing about a 200-pound remotely piloted helicopter that is applied to enter the national airspace system. so, john, how soon before amazon will be delivering a book on my doorstep with a vehicle like that? >> well, i'll leave the marketing on dotcom to jeff bezos. but let me just sort of walk you through some of the steps that

the faa has taken today. the administrator has made it very clear that regarding the entry of uass into the system is going to be done in a prudent, step-by-step basis. with safety at the foremost in our minds. today we have, as you know, congressionally directed six key test site areas that we're going to sort of get a lot of new information from. four of them have been stood up. other two are not far behind being stood up. we also have issued the very first commercial type approved restricted category aircraft in the arctic. they've been operating up there. and we've been very engaged in providing exemptions to

a limited group of commercial operations. as a result of the congressionally mandated sections, what they call section 333 in the reauthorization bill. so there's a lot of activities we're doing but there's also a lot of stuff remaining. we really don't have standards that are appropriate yet for uass. i think many of you know that we will hopefully have a proposal for the small uas roll-out later this year. and there's always critical technologies that still need to be solved like sense and avoid. and so i think to some degree it's not going to be as soon as some people tend to think it is. >> okay. interesting. in the rule you will put out later this year and response you will put out later this year, do you think you will achieve some standards at that time? or is that still a work in progress?

>> well, remember, it's a small u.s. role. >> right. >> and it is only an nprm. i don't think by virtue of the nprm itself we will have developed standards but there are activities going on. in the rtca special committee, to look at standards, look at the ability to comply with prop 91 to see and avoid. >> very good. martin, what about in canada? where are we with uas integration up there? >> integration is probably a long way away. in one sense we were lucky in 1996, we put in place a rule to authorize uavs. the bad news is that did not have standards just the general ability to issue authority. so those have certainly taken off in the sense that three years ago we shipped out about 150 of those. last year, 950. so clearly volume is increasing.

we learned a lot along the way. a lot of those operations are commercial. the challenge is being able to put a fence around it. so a lot of them were dealt with individually. we got some guidance put out this fall that will help the staff deal with them. also we need to see what the expectations are in terms of what documentation do you need. how do you justify it. how do you show the right mitigation is in place. we also have a working group. we have a long term plan, four phases. first phase is below 25 kilograms. within line of sight which is the wealth of the easy piece. the work can be done on that. i think in that general area, there has been some discussion with the faa and we're in the same place. the operation is less complex. we have a general sense of where we are. ig the biggest next step is

online of sight and i think that's a challenge. not because of authority. but we have solutions for the vehicle. and phases are really getting into the bigger vehicles with that limit eventually. so that's some years away. we are in the process of trying to determine what sort of schedule we can get. rule making at least for the lower group. so probably within the next year or two, we will have something in place, probably if line with the faa. >> are you two -- is the u.s. and canada, do you have an open dialogue between your two agencies on this subject? >> the answer is, i think, yes in a lot of different areas. we have different rules structures in the first place so that doesn't mean the rule is the same. but i'm not sure if you're aware, there is a canada/u.s. initiative directly for rulemaking -- sorry. anyway, very high driven on all sorts of subjects. one item for us and the first

phase of that that was on the initial uav. there has been a technical level, too. >> well, mitch, bring in the global approach to this. what are you seeing at icao. and give us a perspective of how rpa and uas is developing worldwide from your perspective? >> well, very much like my colleagues from national regulatory authorities, we're taking very much a step-by-step approach. in the blueprint that we see ahead for this type of technology, what we're trying to do to the extent possible is mirror what we do in terms of our international approaches to four rpa operation to what we do for manned operations. so in that respect, the uas study group which by the way soon will be up levelled to a full technical panel. we've been working ahead on

looking at what sort of requirements would be necessary for the issuance of an air operator certificate. for rpa operations. very much in line with manned operations. what type would remote pilots need to meet. sort of annex one international licensing requirements as well as what are the air worthiness requirements for the vehicles themselves. and that's been the major focus of our work. previously, back in about 2012, we came out with some enabling standards, very preliminary in nature. first one is aircraft registration. actually recognizing remotely piloted aircraft as aircraft in the international context. and then in annex two, the rules of the air which apply universally, especially over high seas airspace was the initially enabling rules that would allow for one state to authorize another state's

operation with a remotely piloted aircraft into the airspace. those are only initial things. so, again, the work's going focused on pilot areas, air worthiness requirements. so our uas study group has been working away for last two or three years. in march of next year, they expect to roll out the rpa guidance manual. that's the first step leading towards the eventual development of international standards. from the 23rd and 25th of march 2015, we will have a global symposium to start to discuss the impact of rpas in international operations and gradually line the upgrades. the aviation block upgrades. the eventual integration. into nonsegregated airspace for international operations, but that is a long-term process.

we're looking at the first international standards in respect of licensing, the air operator's certificate. worthiness certification, and some enabling standards in annex ten. in about the 2018 timeframe. then we will look for biannual updates of those standards as the technology matures. certainly, as john mentioned, sense and avoid is an issue we'll look at through the study group and again that work will continue in the panel. >> very interesting. >> you know, the two big international initiatives are rpa uas and nextgen. are rpas and uass, should that be a part of nextgen? or are rpas and urps just

another operator within nextgen? i'm asking, do you see this as being integrated. or do we just leave the development of rps over here and and there will be just another user of nextgen? i'll start with you, john. well, first of all when you look at uavs and i'll use the phraseology that we use here in the u.s., uass, there say focus on uass in and of themselves because of the significant challenges they have. privacy and many other issues. but it's impossible for us to look at look on it also considering the impact of uas. at this point in time, there's not a lot of involvement or a lot of focus on uav as part of the nextgen environment. because as my colleagues here have mentioned, we're still many

years away from what you would see as a safe integration and in the very busiest airspace in our system. we're just not there yet. and it will be a number of years. as we go further down the road and as they get closer and closer to doing that, there will be a bigger and bigger focus on it under the nextgen. >> martin, can you comment on that? >> i think the bottom line is, if we want to integrate with the airspace, they have to meet the safety standard. that has been going on. if they get to the point where uavs of any size have that sort of capability, it's going to be easy to integrate. not to say there aren't other issues, so it is setting up and we are trying to get there, they will just be another user. so doing their job, they need to be accommodated but they

shouldn't be a designer either. john and mitch, what do you think? >> very much in line with what both john and martin said. the aviation system brock upgrades, really is a system architecture. if you take an architecture approach to navigation, you have to consider all of the players that are going to be in that system. so, as we move ahead from block zero which we're currently in and then block 1 and block 2 and block 3, there are modules that specifically apply to the remotely piloted aircraft. but it's not all of a sudden. it's an incremental approach as described by my colleagues. >> you know, i've heard all three of you really underscore the importance of safety here. and, know, you're dealing with high-level safety concerns in ensuring the public. you know, what other steps do you think you can take to ensure the public that safety is the prime directive here in rpa/uas

integration. versus the work that's got to be done, you know. what with we do as an industry follow a process that can ensure safety out there. >> maybe i'll start out. it is a relatively start answer. and that is, by taking very slow, deliberative steps, before letting uass into the more busy airspace, there is a perception, and it's built by some of the promotions like amazon.com and many others, that we are imminently set for seeing uass. you would be on a commercial flight for delta airlines, for example. you look out the window and you see a uav fly by. and we're not going to see that any time soon. i think if the public sees, you

know, this thing not happening. and we've been very much out there, letting people know, letting the public know, that we will not allow the uas come into the system until we are completely sure that they are safe, i think that's a great step to educating the public. >> i think the uas industry has demonstrated their ability to keep it safe. but also if they get a bad reputation, that's going to affect their future from many points of view. probably the uninformed users. people would don't realize, even with commercial, that they have partial responsibility. we have the most work to do in short term because those are people popping up on approach to an airport because they have no idea of the consequences of that. >> yeah, mitch from the international perspective, do you see, john and martin alluded to, educating people -- the commercial interests that want to do this. and may not be aware that there needs to be standards put in

place. are you seeing that on the international front as well? or hearing of that in the international front as well? >> absolutely. when i look at the uaf's study group, we have a certain number of people and that study group representative of i will call it the rpa industry, and then we have sort of the main core of international yags today. the regulators, and pilots on the study group. you saw two different approaches. and it is a matter to some extent educating. it took quite a period of time to educate the rpa industry on what are the expectations for safety in our international environment. especially if you're going to start operating in one segregated airspace. so i agree, the incremental approach is essential. i also feel it is very important

that to the extent possible that we take the robust safety system, including safety management systems, that we utilize today in manned operations waenand we apply tho for manned operations. >> thank you. what lessons, have you learned in canada? a lot of people have looked at canada -- you've been there for a while. what lessons have you learned good or bad? >> we've learned many answers, is the correct answer maybe. the expectation of the industry have come a long way with it. in 2009, we made a conscious decision to pause. the fall aparts in the industry were concerned about the complexity. and again, prepped for the education piece. so generally people speaking.

what is that like in reality. but also the other big piece. you know, if you're asking a company to take a faith approach, it is hard to go in there with the inspection tools and modify that. we do a lot of work on that. also a big learning experience. i think those two things started to coalesce and we're starting to have the discussion on the table. even though we have 95% of our flights under usa rules in terms of passengers, we see the need to cover all areas. the airports have but the organizations that if you're going to be in the system went the whole system need to play by the same rules. a decision is not known what and when. >> can you give us an update here in the u.s.? >> yes. we're actually quite further along than some people might see. and martin really brought up a

number of key components that i think very much transcends to the united states. we don't have a rule yet. we don't have a mandate. we are in the process of a rule making. and, but, instead of waiting for the rule to come out, we have developed a pilot program with dozens of airlines in the united states, which comprise of, as martin said, well over 90% of the traveling public. and what we're seeing is, we're seeing a variety of different maturity levels of the sms system and a variety of different airlines. what is important about s & s and this is what i think is exciting. and martin alluded to it, is when the airlines get to a sophisticated level of sms, a high level of maturity, it is going to fundamentally change the way the faa conducts its surveillance. the surveillance necessary for

an airline that does not have an sms requires a certain level of oversight you that might suspect. but if an airline is doing all the things of an sms, collecting data, analyzing the data, developing safety enhancements. implementing them. checking the effectiveness of them. if an airline is doing that the faa doesn't have to have the same level of oversight than we did without it. then we can put resources on the more critical areas of the safety system. so we really see sms as a tremendous boon to safety in the system. but also, the other thing i wanted to mention is we also are developing our own internal sms system. our staffing is based on risk based management, decision making. many of the other decisions we're doing internal in the faa

is fundamentally based on risk taking which is a key component of sms. >> very interesting. you know, a lot has been said about just culture. i think fundamental to sms is voluntary safety. and, you know, often, i certainly hear in some of the meetings that i go, to well, you know, relations between employees and their interaction and their reporting of boundary data is a management labor issue. but honestly, just culture, i think, is what brings good data to the table. where do you see the regulator's role in promoting just culture at the operating level. and getting that mind-set over that the operator needs to focus in on creating that environment to get good information in. what can you do as a regulator on this? >> well, i think the faa had a long great history of promoting voluntary reporting systems.

the one classic example of how successful, voluntarily reported data can be shown in the commercial aviation safety team. which has been in sift tense since the late '90s when we were experiencing quite a bit of accidents in the united states. and we created this government industry clollaboration where w would bring data to the table. shared data. in a just culture environment. in looking at that data, we were able to development a number of safety enhancements. when two different groups of people are looking at the same data, it's very difficult to reach different conclusions. what i've often seen is when you're looking at different kinds of data is where you see the disagreements between one group versus another. and as a result of the commercial aviation safety team

activity, as a major contributor, we've seen the accident rate, the commercial fatal accident rate in the united states drop 80%. so what we see now in the future is increase voluntary reporting information. otherwise, you otherwise would never see that data if we don't provide a culture and environment where people feel comfortable with submitting that information. so i see that as a being a bigger role in the future. >> have you had success in canada for all of the reasons john just -- >> we have had success. there are some things that happen quickly and others that take longer. there's two aspects to it. from an industry point of view, it's very clear to us where we see the just culture, it's driven from the top down. right? you can encourage people. where team management takes the leadership. they want that culture to exist.

if that doesn't happen at the single level then people are not comfortable and it doesn't work. you asked what our role is. i think one of the things we can do as government is to be a bit of a role model in the sense that -- if you're talking about developing trust. it's the old issue, who goes first. we have the government have the opportunity to take that role in the industry. hopefully develop that trust between companies and ourselves. quite apart from of the systems. what we see is people are much more likely to pick up the phone and say, we have this problem. we don't know what we're doing about it yet. we just told that you we're on it and we may refer to that. i think there is a lot of success. but there are still areas that we can make progress. >> you know, one thing that we always talk about in voluntary safety is obviously, deidentified data, creating

aggregate data and information we can act on. but there's always a discussion about what about litigation. mitch, i'm interesting, icao has just made some changes with regard to protecting data from mitigation. maybe you can highlight for us. >> i will if i can. i would like to provide backdrop for this. in this room when we are talking primarily north american population or primary european population, you talk just culture, everybody in the room understands exactly what we mean. if you talk about that globally what a just culture is, there's a lot of room for interpretation. and that's just natural. whenever you talk about something that is just and culture, that is open to interpretation internationally. so what we focused in on is exactly what you mentioned, is the protection of safety information.

it's difficult because you're talking about a balance between protecting safety information for the cause of safety and the need for proper administration of justice. in varying justice systems. initially the icao work under that area was the so-called attachment e to annex 13 which talked about guidance in protection of safety information. and at that point, maturity could only be guidance on protection safety information. coming out of the high-level safety conference of 2010, the countries of the world gave us clear guidance. the guidance was that we needed an annex that was devoted to safety management processes, and we needed to focus in on protection of safety information. so just november last year, the newest annex to the suite of annexes we had to the chicago convention came out, annex 19, safety management.

it also included what we call an attachment which is guidance on protection of safety information. so what had been the latest changes. well, we've had safety information protection task force that met for the past three years. it's been very difficult work. . it's been very difficult work. they came forward just a few months ago to the inner navigation system of icao with proposals, at least in annex 19, as it talks about the type of information that would be used in safety management system or state safety program, how would we upgrade our guidance to a standard? the proposal went before the commission and was accepted. it covers basically three areas. the one area i mentioned about standards concerning a need to balance, the use of safety information for safety purposes, with that, let's say, of proper administration of justice. other major areas establishment of standards to ensure safety

information is used for its intejded purposes. so if you're collecting information for an intended purpose, let's make sure it's used for that purpose. and then determine the levels of protection appropriate to circumstances. so, different levels of protection of the safety information. these are important proposals. and these go across those interpretations of what are just cultures. it goes across the different types of judicial systems in the world. this is an initial proposal. it will go out for consultation with states and international organizations. the pilot, international community, will have their opportunity to comment on those proposals. we're expecting the proposals to come back to icao for final review in about january next year. and we're hoping that these new standards could become applicable in the november time frame of 2016. >> very good.

martin and john, do you see any changes as the result of what mitch is developing up there in icao? do you see any immediate changes that we'll see here in the u.s. or canada? with regards to that? >> martin -- >> no, i don't, because i think we've been very, very diligent and very -- we take very high importance of protecting information. i can reflect back on the 2000s. it was very difficult to get airlines and pilots to come to the table to share information. and i think at the root of the problem, at the root of the ret sense of them to come to the table was mistrust of the faa, of, perhaps, retribution and -- et cetera and sharing the data. what we've learned is we have developed a community of both management, labor and the faa of holding at the highest level the

tenet of protecting data and information. that is, if we can't do that, i can assure you all the data will dry up. >> yes, it will. >> and it will all go away. so, i think we're already there. i really do applaud the icoa work because i do think it's going to help many of the other states that, perhaps, don't hold this to the same degree that the united states does. >> anything you want to add to that? >> i think the challenge we've seen in some areas has to do with a reporting culture. at the same time, confidential reporting system. the two protections are quite different. you know, how do you bring those two together in the long term to make it more open? certainly, that's going to challenge -- we are missing some protection. there's something we need to put in order to provide that protection. we did try once before and there was a lot of debate around sms.

we never got that protection but it's something we're going to go back to. that's to protect the individual. not to say the companies themselves need that guidance but making sure there is some overriding authority there. >> okay. i want to just -- you know, the last two days we've had -- we've alluded to certainly the tragedy of malaysia 17 and, of course, there's a lot of dialogue still about the disappearance of malaysia 370. and, you know, certainly within the last few weeks, a lot of spotlight has come out of icao as far as what is the role in icao in accident investigation and safety? and so, mitch, i was wondering if you would share or, you know, give us a prediction of where you think this is going. icao has really come in the front here now on this area. >> thanks, chuck.

i think it would be wise to break this up into two different issues. because i think we have two really distinct issues. malaysia 370 and malaysia 17. so, i'll address a little bit of what -- about what i'll call the community is doing in relationship to malaysia 370 first. we don't know very much about what happened to malaysia 370. the only thing we do know is we can't exactly locate where it is. that's the only thing we know at this point. so, the community got together. we organized a multidisciplinary meeting on global flight tracking in march of this year. this brought together both governments and industry to start to talk about this issue and start to set some near term, midterm and long-term objectives for the future in respect of tracking airplanes. the near-term objectives, i have to applaud an initiative made by

iata in moving ahead in tracking airplanes on a global basis. so, there's a commitment made by iata to work ahead on this issue. in particular, taking a look at those areas where there isn't surveilled air space and the potential exists for airplanes, let's say, not to be tracked presently at the rate that we would like them to be tracked at. so, iata formed an aircraft tracking task force, the so-called attf. the attf is really a broad cross-section of our aviation industry. so, it involves the regulators. it involves the airline industry itself. it involves the major air frame manufacturers, airbus, boeing, bombardier, indy air. involves the air navigation

service providers worldwide and the airline pilots through your national federation. so that, group is meeting. has been working diligently ahead on near-term measures to implement flight tracking, be able to locate airplanes on a worldwide basis throughout their flight. that's the objective. we expect that their recommendations will come forward from iata to their governing boards for implementation at the end of september. in parallel with this but directly connected with that is what we call a concept of operation. so, as our ability to morrow bustly track airplanes improves, we want to make sure that the system that would need to respond to an abnormal flight situation can equally and robustly respond to that. the objective, of course, is to search and rescue people within

a reasonable period of time, if there are survivors. so, we have to look at the entire infrastructure. and we're looking at a concept of operations that more closely integrates what airlines would be doing in terms of their tracking of airplanes and how that fits into the overall air navigation system. so, again, this group, it's working in parallel. it's a group that consists of the -- i would call the leading members of the community in the air navigation infrastructure. what we call the chairs of our technical panels, working with the air navigation commission. also having liaison over to the aircraft tracking task force in developing this concept of operation. they're looking for the concept of operation to be in draft form for consideration by the end of september as well. so, the two groups, working in

parallel, but there's cross-poll nation. part of the concept that applies to airlines and what they would do in terms of aircraft tracking, that part of the concept of operations is being drafted by the airlines. and we're looking for an integrated system ahead. so, ultimately in summary, the aircraft tracking task force will come up with its recommendations to the industry, end of september. and the group developing the concept of operations for systemwide approach, their recommendations by the end of september. >> what about malaysia 17 as far as the role -- as far as accident investigation, do you see any changes coming down the pike for that? >> in the history of what icao has done in actually providing advice, going on fact-finding missions in support of an accident investigation, i don't think conceptually that's

changed much with malaysia 17. and i think i need to kind of follow through on a little bit of a timetable of what the events were and what ica oechlt's role has been to spell it out. i will say we may have had a little more of a role than we've had in the past, given the circumstances, that this occurred in. and it certainly spelled out a past for future work that i'll briefly describe. so, as you all know the tragic event occurred on the 17th of july, 2014. within five days, we had a team of people in the ukraine to provide advice to the government of ukraine in this accident investigation. so, the role of icao was to provide advice, to provide guidance on all the relevant aspects of the convention, the international convention on international civil aviation and international provisions of

annex 19 as it pertains to accident investigation. it was also there as a fact-finding mission and to ensure that all of the evidence is thoroughly considered. now, all this is very much kent with the united nations security council resolution, which called for a full, thorough and independent international investigation consistent with international guidance. and i think you can imagine in the circumstances that this occurred that the international community made a strong call on icao to participate in this process. so, where we've been a little more involved, i'd say than in past occurrences, we did participate with the handover of the recorders to the appropriate authorities. in addition to that, we basically provided some looking over the shoulder as the

recorders were -- the information was downloaded from both cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, and we'll continue our guidance and support. but i think what this did, and i listened intently to the previous panel, and these comments are very consistent with that previous panel. just last week the president of the council of icao and secretary-general of icao convened a ceo-level meeting between the icao for iata, and the air navigation providers worldwide. they jointly, when they got together condemned the use of weapons against civil aircraft. and they found together and made a joint statement that that the downing of malaysia 17 is unacceptable.

so, here's where the challenge is. almost immediately after the event, we came out with a state letter. this is how we inform all the states and the industry. we reminded the states of what their obligations are to do risk or threat assessments and as was previously mentioned, to mitigate for that within the air space above their sovereign territory, the coordination that a state is responsible for between its civil and military sectors, the coordination that's necessary to air traffic services and to the operators. but in the world today, as was mentioned in the previous panel, there are countries that are at conflict. and those countries can't always carry out, for obvious reasons, all of the threat assessment, the risk mitigation, because they're in the midst of a conflict and they may not always have that capability to do that. so, coming out of this meeting on the 29th of july, it was

agreed to form a high-level task force that's called the high-level task force on risks to civil aviation arising from conflict zones. there will be high-level representatives from regulatory authorities from states, high-level officials from industry and also the pilot community that has a very strong vested role and interest in this will also be present during the task force meeting. task force will have its first meeting next -- i believe it's thursday and friday. it's the 14th and 15th of august. they've been given a clear mandate to come forward with recommendations. and i'll characterize the recommendations in just a second. what their recommendations are to the international civil aviation community are within eight weeks. that's a tight time frame. it's a little unusual in the icao time frame, to be honest with you.

so, that might be a absolutelily different role. to characterize the recommendations, making sure the right information gets to the right people at the right time and how do we go forward in that. thanks, chuck. >> thank you very much. that's very interesting. we'll keep posted on that. want to give you an opportunity to ask some questions. all three of our panelists are willing to take our questions. may or may not be on anything we've discussed so far. in light of what mitch just said, how can the u.s. and transport canada participate or encourage or even direct the international dialogue that's going on? obviously, we have a strong ntsb here. we have a strong tsb up in canada. what roles do you see playing as this discussion goes on and we see some changes that may result from this?

>> i think there's certainly a role. we are part of that task force. it's actually my colleague on the security side. but i think it's inevitable the security and safety are going to be interwoven. i think ourselves and probably faa are going to have a role to play from the safety point of view and supporting some of the solutions that will be implemented through safety or perhaps design. it's not just intelligence. it's how you implement that. i think we'll both be very engaged. >> we are very much engaged in the task force, the icao task force. i would like to echo the previous comment that iata really, i think, came out very quickly about the need for some form of continuous monitoring, or monitoring of aircraft during difficult periods of flight. while i'm not here to describe or discuss -- establish u.s. policy towards our position on that, i do think it's fair to

say that it's very difficult for anyone to say that we shouldn't have something different than what we've had because it really, from an aviation safety standpoint, to have an airplane simply disappear and not know why is a setback to aviation safety. no doubt about it. so, we do need something. it's really all comes down to what form does that take? >> very good. we do have a text question. >> yes, good morning. one of the questions we've had come in, is it true that airlines in canada -- this question is for martin -- cannot type for new pilots when looking for new hires in canada? >> that particular issue is a labor issue. there is discussion on that. i'm not sure if i want to give you a blunt answer because i'm not 100% sure, even though i'm familiar with the subject.

so it's really -- foreign workers and who you advertise for because foreign workers are only permitted if there's a labor shortage. what are you looking for when you look at domestic resources first. so, i try -- i don't really want to answer the question because i want to make sure it would be precise. but that's actually a labor market issue which belongs to a different department. it's not a transport, even though we validate their foreign license, we only do that with the agreement of our esdc -- sorry, i can't even remember what the acronym stands for. used to be human resources administration. they've changed their name of late. we're engaged but we're not the lead on that decision. >> sir? >> bob from united. i apologize to set up this question, i kind of have to give a mini speech here, but mr. hickey said that sms and well-running asap program as a complement to it will save the faa money in that it's kind of a

bit of a force multiplier. i think everyone agrees if you have a robust reporting culture, you don't have to send the inspectors to the cockpits as often. but there's a regulation -- or a 126-c that's coming out soon. it's been promised to come out next week. next week for the last few years. so, it's supposed to come out in a couple weeks. some of the rumors we're hearing about this may be some issues with things like sole source. a pilot reports something and no other way to find out about it so that's the sole source. still allowing discipline or action against that pilot. also the faa has taken a stance they want everyone to go to a template mou for asap programs meaning all the agreements are exactly the same. we at our company take -- well,

for the ---er with having a hard time with this the mou portion is a great way to start a program if you've got, here's the template, here's how you set up your program, here are the protections we offer and how the programs are going to work. but we started the program with the faa. we're in the beginning. we evolved. and to roll back to what you're going to give to, you know, the new inten grant billy bob air service out of des moines makes absolutely no sense to us. the first pilot that is taken to task over sole source report will end all information coming to the faa. all of it. [ applause ] and i don't think that's the intent. i think that is a very, very big mistake that the faa is missing.

and so i urge you to work with the people at the headquarters and say, look, guys, if you've got an established program that works, like at united and mostly airlines here, don't touch them. let them go. if you want -- if you're trying to avoid the 30-page mou that somebody has, then give them the template and say, look, that's -- if you got 30 pages, it's not working anyway. ours, for instance, is the template and a few paragraphs, one or two paragraphs, that's it. if you take those away, we lose. is there anything you can tell us as a body that is -- what you said earlier was your assuring us these are protected and you want the information. you're going to lose the information if you go down that path that we're being told we're going to have to go down. what can you tell us about that? >> first of all, let me back up to maybe the very beginning of what you were commenting on.

when i mentioned sms and i talked about how it would sort of drive a very different surveillance model, i certainly am not speaking about specifics about whether we're going to be in the cockpit or not. so, please, don't misunderstand. we would tailor surveillance programs to individual airlines depending on the nature of the sms program. i don't want to be on record or saying i was specific to any part of surveillance programs. now, to your main point, again,ly echo back that we very much support the need to get single source information because if we don't get that, we'll lose valuable information. and that information must be protect the. i can't emphasize that enough that that is a very important thing. i've got to be honest with you. i don't know, i'm not familiar with ac-12066 that you were

referring to. that seems to be rumors running around that might undermine that. i don't know that. so, the only thing i can say is i will go back and take a look at what's going on there and, in fact, see if it, you know, it would undermine the very nature of what we just talked about. i'll take that back. >> thank you very much. >> yeah, i think that's a good point, is we don't want to do anything, even for the -- at the sake of expediency, we don't want to jeopardy. like you say, and i'm sure martin and mitch would echo, that that sole source and protecting that very high-quality data is central to what we're trying to do here. so, thank you. i think we have time for one more question. sir? >> yeah, back to the subject of uass, we appreciate your precaution and wide scale use of uass, but what can we expect -- this is sort of a professional speculation. what will the public see as the

first use of uass and how far away is that? that's just a speculation. i'm not going to hold you to it. >> i can tell you that we already have real estate agents taking aerial photographs of expensive hazes because that's the way they sell. camera crews have, you know, a lot of commercial work, sort of for tv commercials. there's a lot of applications. i think they've -- from our perspective, and the way we're comfortable with that is putting a fence around where they can do it and when, under what conditions. we have farmers looking at their crops because they can get an aerial view of where things aren't looking properly. that's a capacity they didn't have before. the uses are almost endless, i would say. >> what i would add from the united states' side is, it maybe not -- i think you used the phrase, what would the public see? i will say what the public would

be aware of is much along the lines of what my colleague said, is you will see a lot of public entities, like border patrol and border protection. i think the public is well aware of widespread use of those. pipeline, inspections of pipelines and the agriculture use. that's immediate and going on now. but i think what the public may be seeing very soon, if not already, is the thing i mentioned early on about the exemptions that we're giving according to section 333 and the reauthorization. this is giving exemptions that allow certain entities in certain isolated air space to operate for a business venture. and one of them was the most common one, i think, many of you have heard, the motion picture association. we granted an exemption to them. so, i think you'll see more -- more along those lines.

but again, what you're going to see is you won't see them, and this is a great pilot community, you won't see them in class "b" air space any time soon. >> mitch, any -- just one last xhint for you. anything you can say internationally, are there hot spots of usarp development beyond the united states and the u.s. that you've seen propping up as far as development? >> just to give you an idea of the size of the industry, right now for commercial air frames, there are about a half dozen countries that are involved as the final producers of commercial airplanes of today. our estimates put it between 40 and 50 states that are presently involved in either the design or manufacture of remotely piloted aircraft today. >> well, we could talk for hours. there's a lot of questions.

i'm very grateful to our panel. i appreciate you coming here and speaking on these subjects. would you please join me in thanking them for their time to join us today? [ applause ] join us tuesday here on c-span3 for programs focusing on health care issues. we'll show you remarks from cbs pharmacy's president larry merlot, and a house hearing on medicare fraud. all starting tuesday at 8 p.m. eastern. plenty more live campaign 2014 debate coverage coming up tuesday on c-span. starting at 8 p.m. eastern. an arkansas senate debate between incumbent mark pryor and republican congressman tom cotton. recent polling has this race as a toss-up. after that south carolina governor nikki haley faces off

with vincent sheheen and independent tom irvin. whi and incumbent oregon governor meets with republican challenger dennis richardson. that race has been listed as leaning democrat. see it live tuesday at 10 p.m. eastern, also on c-span. be part of c-span's campaign 2014 coverage. follow us on twitter and "like" us on facebook to get debate schedules, video clips of key moments, debate previews from our politics team. c-span is bringing you over 100 senate, house and governor debates. you can instantly share your reactions to what the candidates are saying. the battle for control of congress. stay in touch and engaged by following us on twitter @c-span and liking us on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. now, more from the annual safety conference hosted by the air line pilots association.

this is a discussion on modernizing and funding the national air space system and the faa's next generation air transportation system. it's a new program aimed at shifting from a ground-base air traffic control system to a satellite-based system. this is an hour and 20 minutes. well, good afternoon, everybody. thanks for hanging in here with us. i think you're going to find this panel exceptionally interesting. you'll have great conversations. for those of you joining us for the panel, you'll also be rewarded with a great presentation from an -- a former astronaut who is now a member of spacex. i think some of the things we'll talk about possibly during this panel might even tie into some of the comments that mr. reeseman will have for us in a little bit. one of the biggest challenges that i have sometimes f i look

out and see a group of ten pilots, i ask them, what is nextgen, typically, even though we're the practitioners of nextgen, sometimes it's very difficult to even define the term. if you can't really define the term, then how do you know what your role is in driving these programs forward? so, my answer to them is nextgen is simply the application of policies, procedures and equipment which drives up efficiency of our transportation system and does so while plain takening or enhancing aggregate levels of safety and security. and even that might be a little difficult to do. but even more difficult is how do we get from fix to fix while the air space system still has to be a 24/7 operation. it's kind of like trying to change the tires on a car as you're speeding down the road, but we must do it, right? so, today we've heard panels discussing several aspects of

how pilots are getting the job done safely and securely. we've listened to the faa, transport canada and icao provide their perspectives on key safety issues and heard leading aviation medical experts provide information on occupational safety and health issues affecting the flight deck. for our final panel of, our group of aif air experts will discuss the flight plan, the promise and even the potholes of the nextgen air traffic control system. since the introduction of jets into the national air space system, what we call the nas, over 50 years ago the world of commercial aviation has certainly changed dramatically. aircraft fly more passengers, carry more cargo, fly higher, faster, further and consume a lot less gas than the platforms that we flew not too long ago. compare what a 777 does right now versus a boeing 707. the number of annual aircraft

operations has also increased exponentially but the number of accidents has dropped to an all-time low and the level of safety and the nas has never, ever been higher. as pilots, we're always looking for new pilot-centric tools that improve our ability to aviate, navigate and communicate, yet won't overwhelm us or degrade flight safety. we want tools that can be used expeditiously and rolled out and -- be rolled out and easily assimilated. however, when you think about it, the atc system we're in right now really does a lot of things much the way they did it decades ago. we still use radar surveillance. we still do most of our control via voice communications and we still receive vectors, most of the time. despite increased demand for ever increasing capacity and efficiency, the atc system still

must continue to evolve. for the past 15 years, nextgechlt n has been heralded as a game-changer. gradually we've seen progress toward navigation, control of pilot data link communications, and ads surveillance, which has really come into focus, especially in the wake of the malaysia 370 tragedy. much of the progress that has been made in oceanic and other low volume traffic areas have not really been exported into the nas and more extensive change has to occur. change is inevitable by-product of a transition to nextgen. new equipment, procedures, atc training, corporate culture and on and on. change means the same old ways of doing business will not work looking forward. change requires strong faa leadership. change requires moving towards a more nimble corporate model that is able and willing to make tough decisions in a timely

manner and then execute on them. our panel today will look at nextgen, the good, the bad and the ugly. we'll discuss where we've been, how we got there, where we need to go and the impacts on various segments of our industry and the lessons we've learned along the way. let me give you a little reference point for the reason i chose the word potholes in the title. i grew up upstate, up near new york city. and whenever we would have to drive anywhere, we would basically have to have a bucket full of coins to go through all the toll booths, right? it was a tedious process going from toll booth to toll booth to toll both. throw on top of that an accident or traffic delay and it was a tedious thing. now i can get in my car here in washington, d.c., have a transponder that's on my windshield and go through every single toll plaza from here back to my old house.

without ever having to stop once and fish out for money. in my home state of washington, back in may of 2013, there was a bridge that collapsed over the river and basically severed a portion of interstate 5 between seattle and vancouver 37. now, obviously, that was an urgent enough situation that a quick and timely decision was made and was executed. it didn't take months. it didn't take years. it certainly didn't take a decade to do something about it. they had two replacement spans up in place one month later. the question then becomes, if we understand the urgency of when things happen on the ground f we understand and can relate to potholes, to bridge collapses and everything else, and we also understand the importance of our aviation industry, how can we not figure a way -- a plan to explain that importance and to execute on moving these programs forward? so, to join me in the discussion

from your left to your right, i'm very pleased to introduce marla westervelt, who works for eno center transportation. she plays the role of switzerland in this conversation this afternoon. what they do is they look at multimodal transportation issues, they grab panels of experts, very knowledgeable folks. and they look to provide recommendations. to marla's west is bob poole. bob works for and actually basically started something called the recent foundation. bob has been a transportation expert for many, many years, especially with respect to funding issues. and he provides a report under the recent foundation banner. his legacy goes back many, many administrations and as well as the faa, where he's been a trusted adviser for transportation issues and funding.

you're going to kind of cross the mason dixon line to ed bolen here. ed is with national business safety association and ed is a tremendous expert in the world of aviation transportation. he was appointed back in 1981 by george bush as an adviser on how we could modernize our air space system. his legacy continues in many, many high-level boards to include management advisory council at faa, worked with them on various other things. tremendously smart gentleman. and to ed's left is my good friend, mel davis. i call him too tall. and mel has 27 years of front line atc experience. mel is also mr. nextgen in the faa. he basically is the focus point for how we bring equipage,

policies and procedures and execute on them in the line of business under the air traffic organization at the faa. we're tremendously blessed to have all these folks here. it's a great privilege to work with all of them. i would also note that mel and i also both serve on the eno board of advisers where we're making sure that we carry our perspective on pilot and controller centric solutions to nextgen air space modernization. so, i'm going to go have a seat over there and join everybody. then what we're going to do is i'm going to invite opening comments. while you're listening to our speakers provide their opening comments, please do me a favor, listen very carefully and if you have any questions, please start writing them down so we can continue this conversation moving forward. marla. >> thanks so much, sean. as sean mentioned i'm with the eno center for transportation which is a transportation policy think tank. one of the most effective things that we're able to do as a

research institution is identify larger transportation policy challenges and as a neutral convener bring together key stake holders and industry leaders to discuss best pass possible avenues forward. a few years ago we came to you, the aviation industry, and we asked you what your biggest challenges were. through these conversations we found the biggest issue was languishing implementation of nextgen. so, we brought together in nextgen an working group along with everyone else on this panel is working together. our group began to discuss the barriers to nextgen implementation and we found modernization was inherently linked to funding and structure of air traffic control. as you know, u.s. air traffic control is operated by the federal aviation administration and funded through airplanes

trust fund and general fund. as a governmental structure it is subject to annual along with government procurement. air traffic control is the only transportation service in the federal government that is operated by the federal government. it is also the only service operated and regulated by the same entity, which is highly unusual. as a result of this structure, we have been experiencing inconsistent federal funding as well as what some may say too much government intervention. discussing these challenges, the working group agreed we should look into how to potentially reform this system. we began by looking at how the system came to be what it is today. and we also looked into the attempts at reform that have been made multiple times since the 1980s. we found each attempt at reform was stopped by the stakeholders

not agreeing on what they wanted that reform to look like. also extremely important, our research has been looking into what our international peers have done. we have found that many of our peers over the last 25 years have reformed their systems and they have been able to implement modernization technologies such as nextgen at a much faster level than we have been able to. we have identified three primary structures. the first structure is keeping air traffic control operation within the federal government, or national government, but separating it out from regulation as is the case in france. and probably the most prevalent model has been the government corporation. this model can be found in germany as well as australia. and the final model, which is only found in canada, is taking air traffic control operation entirely out of the national government and having operated by a nonprofit organization. currently our 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 what model would best fit your needs. the ultimate aim of our group is to help you make this decision and help you, then, bring this decision to the table. thank you. >> thanks very much. over to you, bob. >> thanks. i've been working on aviation policy, air traffic control reform ideas for about 30 years. and have reached a number of conclusions but about three years ago another group, business round table, approached me and some other people to create also a working group that's been working for that three-year period to come up with a proposal for an air traffic corporation. and we've had a lot of discussions with all the key stakeholders. we've concluded there are at least five important reasons why we need to do a reform. marla kind of alluded to some of them.

number one, that almost everybody agrees on, is the funding situation has become very unstable and unpredictable. and this has led to triage going on. right now, the nac is triaging investments because there simply isn't enough money and you can't plan out what money is going to be there three years from now, five years from now, so people can't plan on equipping and know when they equip, there will actually be a system there that will give them benefits. another problem that's quite severe for the faa, as a federal bureaucracy, is what we might call technology lag, that the decision cycle time within faa tends to be longer than the innovation cycle in the -- in avionics, so by the time you finally get to a decision and implement something, it's no longer the state of the art. and this is a real problem for a system that needs to stay with the state of the art and be a leading system.

another problem institutionally is the way things work when you pay attention to the source that provides your funding, and even though the user taxes pay for most of the cost. system, the money actually comes from congress. congress appropriate rats it ev year and they give a lot of directives of how that money will be spent. they limit what you can do, mandate what you can do and have tremendous amount of oversight because they define it as taxpayers' money and they have to be responsible for it. well, that means the de facto focus of facha is a lot focusedn congress, policing congress, because that's where the money comes from. but the focus really should be on pleasing the customers who are using the system. and the people working in the system and doing what they believe is best. so that, i see, as another governance problem. and finally, the question that marla mentioned, of operatings versus regulation.

being in the same entity is recognized in most other parts of the u.s. government as inherently a conflict. it's recognized by icao as of a decade ago as something that should be organizationally separate and certainly every civil -- not civil -- every leading western country has made organizational separation and this is a fact of life now, that these are -- you know, this arm's length regulation between the safety regulator and provide of air traffic services just as there is between the operators of the airlines and the mechanics and pilot licensing, so it's all arm's length. as marla said, over 50 countries have created some form of air traffic corporation. and all of those that are real corporations are self-funded. in other words, the funding has been depoliticized.

and that refocuses the focus of the organization on what the customers want, especially if they have a governance 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, thois are the kinds of things that are going on in other countries. the group at business round table has -- is working on fleshing out the details of a plan and of actual proposed draft of legislation that is intended to be ready by early next year when congress starts holding hearings on reauthorization. so, we're very actively working. i'm also involved with the eno project. and i think they're working very much in parallel with a slightly different focus but with the same objective, of creating a sustainable system that really works for the aviation customer

and stakeholder customer community. so, look forward to all the discussion we'll have. >> thanks very much. over to you, ed. >> well, thanks, sean. i really appreciate the unit to be here today and to be with alpa. we have the opportunity to work together on a large number of work groups around town. and i think our collective efforts have been strong. and i think this is one more example of that. you know, sean mentioned in his opening remarks the importance of nextgen. i think while there may be some disagreements on this panel about some of the tactics, i think there is complete unanimity in terms of the goal. that is, getting to nextgen. the business aviation community has been a primary advocate for nextgen because we -- we see it as an essential part of the united states staying the world's largest, safest, more diverse and more efficient air transportation system in the

world. when we started on the nextgen path, we had an idea, we had a concept, which said that if we could go from ground-based navigation to satellite-based navigation and from analog communication to digital communication, that we would open up a lot of opportunities. opportunities that would allow us to enhance safety, because we could enhance situational awareness. we felt we could reduce our environmental footprint by having more direct routes. and we felt we could increase the capacity and the throughput, the efficiency of our system by having things like more precise spacing. all of those goals, those concepts, i think, had widespread support, but as we have moved toward development and implementation, we've begun

to recognize, this is no easy task. and i think sean put it out pretty well when he talked about the idea of trying to change the tire while moving down the highway. and i think one of the things we all agree on is that we want to make sure, as we do this evolution, the cord keeps moving. doesn't stop and it doesn't go backwards. as i said before, today the u.s. has, by any empirical measure, the best transportation system in the world. it's the largest, the safest, the most efficient, the most complex, the most diverse. and our challenge now is to stay the best. how do we need to evolve? where do we need to go from here? how can we best get there? a lot of people have suggested that the way to go forward is to look outside of the united states and follow some of the models that have already been discussed.

and certainly the business aviation community, the entire general aviation community, is looking at all the alternatives out there and trying to evaluate them. but as we do that, again, we don't want to lose sight of where we are, how we get here and how we preserve the system opportunities that we have now for everyone going forward. for business aviation, access to airports, and access to air space, is fundamental to the future of our industry. and for a lot of small towns and rural communities all across the united states that depend on business aviation, for economic development and for jobs and for humanitarian lift, 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 air space and airports get congested, business aviation tends to get squeezed out. you know, some of you may remember back when midway was largely a general aviation airport. kind of the same thing with ft. lauderdale, san jose. there's a lot of places where the airport got crowded and business aviation began to be in secondary and tertiary locations. we believe it's important that we have access to the airports and air space and we think this transition from ground-based to satellite, from analog to digital s fundamental to getting there. we know there are challenges associated with the current governance structure. we also know, however, when you look back over the past 15

years, the faa's funding stream has been remarkably stable in a very unstable time. if you think back over the last 15 years, the united states was attacked on 9/11. we went to war in 2003. we stood up the entire department of homeland security. we faced one of the greatest recessions in our nation's economic history. and there have been a few things like hurricanes and oil spills and other challenges that have been out there. throughout that entire 15-year period, funding for the faa has been flat or gone up every year. the general fund contribution has been robust. so, as we look at alternatives, we want to make sure it's a clear-eyed evaluation. we understand where we're all trying to go. and we understand how we can get there together. but i think sometimes it's easy to look and say, junk what we

have. let's do something big. let's do something bold. let's do something 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 meetings with alpa five years from now and ten years from now, we're always able to begin by saying, today the united states has the best air transportation system in the world. >> it's kind of interesting. one thing that you emphasized, ed, is that in all the work we do, and we all sit on a lot of mutual advisory boards and technical communities and working groups and everything else, that i think especially when you look at a board like eno, i think folks kind of come in from a much more kind of performance based and outcome based objective as opposed to a lot of other groups where you have people with a particular piece of equipage or something that is, you know, something that prompts them to kind of stake a position and kind of

draw a little bit of a line in the sand. i think the one thing we can all agree on is that we have to do something. regardless if we just refine the system that we have or if we take a much more kind of transformative approach. with that in mind, mel is right in the epicenter of where all this change is happening. he's actually one of the agents of change management. and he's also the fellow who makes sure that the car still stays on the road, doesn't back up and doesn't park while they're changing the tires. next to the controllers. over to you. >> thanks, sean. and it's a blessing to be the representative of those 20,000 bargaining unit members that are making sure the car doesn't stop. so, really, i've been doing less of watching the car -- individual cars and watching more proverbially the freeway and the highways of the system. but, with that said, just to reflect. i appreciate the title of the panel. i'm sorry, the title of the presentation and the opportunity to represent naca.

i think about -- we want to talk about the trajectory of modernization. we want to talk about some of the potholes that we see now and we believe we'll experience along the way. and then the promise. so, never having been one to shy away from tough problems, let's just laser in right on the potholes for starters and i'll talk a little about the beginning and the end, parts of the panel. on the pothole side, it doesn't take too long for us to, as aviation -- members of the aviation community to really distill down on very short order that there's two basic perspectives. almost a tale of two stories of modernization. as soon as you start to look at it in depth at all. you see that the scenario that plays out perfect timing with last week the eaa event in oshkosh where you have this incredible, robust desire in the general aviation community to participate in the air space. and then this week where we have this group of union airline

pilots that operate the transportation hubs. those are the two book ends, the two ends of that story to say, how do we modernize a system that has that much diversity? that clearly represents a significant pothole. how do you define you're going to modernize both systems that feed both ends of the spectrum? another way to look at it f you change your perspective a little bit, would say we have this core legacy infrastructure that exists and has existed, like sean said, for many, many years. very resilient, robust, very efficient. if you look at the cost to operate the current system versus how we -- compared to our peers around the world, we are very proud of the fact that it's an efficient, both from a cost per speck five and capacity perspective system. so, that's one aspect of modernization, is how do we maintain or sustain those core components that are necessary to be there far into the future? or you look at the leveraging

the satellite-based capabilities. you say, we can't have all of one or the other. we need to somehow find a way to meld the capabilities of both pieces of -- or both components of the system. again, a tale of two stories. two very large potholes, depending on what perspective you use to view them from. so, let's back up and talk a little about the trajectory of air space modernization or nextgen, as it's currently branded. there's been significant efforts over the years to do that, whether it was free flight or air 2100 or air 2000 or something like that, depending on the current branding. air space modernization is nextgen. i would say one thing that's critical to me to communicate to my membership on the ground-based side of the microphone, and i'm sure it's critical to communicate to captain moekz membership, what is the key -- what is the role of the human element in the far

term of nas modernization, air space modernization? i think one of the great places to look to answer that question is what are the air framers doing from a human factors perspective? what is it they're going to ask the pilots of the future to do? what are they investing in in human factors research today? and significantly boeing announced -- again, it's significant to this argument. it wasn't -- didn't get a lot of air time. they had essentially zeroed out the line item for human factors funding for airborne self-separation. so, what they're saying as an air framer, major air framer, to say this concept, initial concept, of far-term nextgen is there's going to be super high levels of automation and controllers sitting back and watching and controlling by exception, right, more air traffic and pie loets being more systems manager.

there's a deep recognition there's a human, a strong human role in even the far term of whatever this modernization effort is called now or will be called in the future. you can see that across the different modernization plans of the worldwide ansp, service providers around the world. they all adhere to an essential block upgrade system that accepts the fact there's going to be a large amount of human interaction for many years to come. so, that's kind of the trajectory of modernization. so, i would say considering the potholes, it's a good trajectory. and it's -- it's realistic and there's a lot of promise that's built in there that's achievable. so, that goes to the last part of the title of the panel, which s what are the promises? one thing captain moak has been vocal about is let's take the things we know we can do and do them now. let's fast forward those benefits. let's prove that we've

transitioned from research and development to implementation. and then that will buy us some time or buy us some bandwidth to do those more aggressive things down the road. and i would net that was cast across airspace modernization was everything from low end ga to very high-end commercial high density operations and the research and development put on table for the implementers significant benefits in each one of those areas. what we have done is things like wake returbulence, where we see significant through put on the order of putting in a new runway. a through put increase, 37% at some places. taking that and doing it everywhere that it's relevant, that's what captain moak is talking about, those types of deployments or implementations. we have talked a little bit about the potholes.

talked a little bit about the trajectory. talked a little bit about the promise. i think what we recognize is that we have a foot in each one of those worlds, depending on -- regardless of the perspective. what we see is a very robust aviation system in the u.s. that we participate in at three of the four levels. the fourth level being the uncontrolled airports. the low, low, density ga airports. whatever we decide to do is to ensure that all three or four levels are protected and maintained. stable funding tw comes to modernization, critical. absolutely critical, especially when you talk about the more complex programs that are going to take five or six years to deploy. we have to stabilize the funding. of primary concern for us and our membership and the members here in the room operating on the flight deck and the wonderful people up at eaa last week is that we have to recognize that this is a very

diverse system that does not exist anywhere else in the world. we have to do it very methodically. i look forward to the conversation and absolutely to your questions. >> let's jump right in. go ahead. >> this is what i like. >> i'd like to challenge a little bit something ed said about stable funding. if you look five years ago at the faa's official projection for what the facility and equipment -- the capital budget for modernization would be by this year, by 2014, it was a billion dollars more than the actual amount that they have to work with today. because of the overall federal budget pressures. it may be stable in terms of constant levels, but it's not at the level that was planned for serious investment in modernization. and that is why they have having to do triage, having to say, well, we wanted to do this and

this and this, but now we have to focus on only the things that we can do near-term that very much short-term benefits because we don't know -- we the faa don't know what our funding is going to be next year let alone three years or five years from now. the difference between that and the self-funded corporate model, how it's organized, is that if the money is depoliticized and it's a bondable revenue stream, then air traffic corporations like canada, like air services, can issue revenue bonds just as electric utilities do, as railroads do, as airports do and fund and finance the big capital programs, get the money in place where it's needed now and then pay for it out of the ongoing revenues as users experience the benefits. that is a model that -- that's how airports do their capital programs. it's how almost all of the other air navigation service providers

these days worldwide in developed countries do it. we are the only country that's trying to fund a major capital modernization program basically out of annual cash flow that is not determinable in advance. it's only determinable by each year's appropriation process which is limited by the situation of the federal budget. looking back 15 years is fine. but you have to look forward 15 years and say, what is the condition of the federal government? how much money is going to be available? what kind of across the board budget curtailments are there going to be? remember, a 10-year program. we have a two-year reprieve so cuts are not in effect last year and this year. there's eight years still to come of sequester, unless congress can come up with a new budget fix. we have a very serious funding environment in which we're trying to modernize and get the benefits to keep our system the best in the world. and in some of these technology areas we are falling behind.

canada has nationwide controller pilot data link in on route airspace. it will be a decade, fingers crossed, before we have that here. there's things lie s like sate e satellite-based. faa was invited to get that off the ground. there's no way they could make a decision because they would have to have appropriated funding that comes into play several years from now. there's no way an organization on the federal budget can do that. there's things like that that i think we really need to take into account. that's what's driving a lot of the effort for looking at a big change, funding and organizational change as opposed to just minor reforms. >> i think there's several different ways to look at the funding issue. and certainly, the faa's internal projections of how much money they would have right now

is a fair way to do it. what i did is went back 15 years and i could have gone back longer, because i recall as far back as the 1997 reauthorization debate, there was a lot of conversation about the funding system being broken, the general fund going away, that it wasn't sustainab sustainable. if you look at that each and every year, if you had said, i bet the faa's budget will be at least what it was the year before and potentially go up a percent or two, would you have been accurate for 15 years. despite an incredible uncertain environment out there, which as i said before involves wars and attacks and recession and so forth. and that's not to suggest that what we have is perfect. but a lot of times people make it sound as if it simply can't function. >> it's functioning. it's functioning.

i completely agree that it is functioning. i think it could do a lot better though, based on seeing what other countries are able to do. they're smaller, admittedly they haven't had the same kind of history of -- we have been historically a technology leader. i think that's questionable today it's certainly questionable looking forward over the next decade. not that we aren't inventing new things. but being able to implement them and get the benefits from them i think is very much open to question. >> i think there's -- certainly, we see products get manufactured. they need to be certified. we have had some challenges at the faa working through the certification, working through the approvals. but a lot of what we're talking about when we talk about air traffic control reform is we're talking about the air traffic system. >> sure. >> one of the things that we have seen in the business aviation community, particularly

as we have become more international in nature -- that's true over the last ten, 15, 20 years -- what i am hearing from operators is when we fly around the world, we come back and conclude that from the point the wheels leave the pavement to the the point the wheels touch back down, the united states is the system where we think it is best to operate. you know, i want to be clear. where we are today doesn't mean that's where we will always be. it doesn't mean we shouldn't change and evolve. in fact, we have been at the forefront of articulating the need to evolve. i just want to be a little bit cautious with the all is broken. sometimes it seems to me that maybe with regard to funding, it may have worked better in practice than one would have expected in theory. okay? i mean, it has been pretty stable for the last 15 years.

and that doesn't mean sequestration doesn't change that. but it also doesn't mean we can take it for granted that the funding won't be there. >> there's an interesting -- maybe an anecdote that would help maybe inform both sides of the debate, assuming that that's a debate format. >> it's what you wanted, right? >> this is a self-moderating panel. >> if you look at -- i alluded to what the others are doing worldwide from a concept perspective. i alluded to what boeing is doing. let's look at what's happening. if you look at maybe most people would characterize the most advanced performance based navigation system and most people would point to australia. they have done a great job at deploying significant levels of

pbn. they are reformed. i'm not sure which model. but -- >> government corporation. >> government corporation. that tension between the regulator and the operator, their version of the ato is there is intense tension to the -- depending who you talk to, tt to, they are ready to revoke the certificate. if the funding is stable, are we deploying the technology on a system-wide basis at the right pace? what i will tell you is if you look at the highest density hub, my understanding is they are shy or not as agreagressive as theye at the spokes. there are things we can do better and faster. we have to be careful to not rush too far forward. my point is that both stable funding and a reformed relationship betwehe