Scare headline not so scary in article

Boo to Hot Air, which posted this headline: “Good news: Feds pulling workers away from FAA to staff exploding Cash for Clunkers bureaucracy” (I found it via Volokh.) The Hot Air post plays up the possibility that thin-on-the-ground air traffic controllers are being taken from towers to process paperwork. The article cited, from the Washington [...]

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Liveblogging Randy Babbitt’s confirmation hearing

The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing today to review several nominations in its purview, including FAA administrator-designate J. Randolph Babbitt and DOT deputy secretary-designate John Porcari. Opening statements are going on now. Babbitt is, as you know, the former president of the Air Line Pilots Association and a pilot at Eastern. According to [...]

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Babbitt: White House makes it official

Here’s the White House press release announcing the nomination of Randy Babbitt as the next administrator of the FAA.

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“There’s no part of our operation that government can’t find a way to improve.”

TEMPE — Echoing Doug Parker’s plea for the government to “do no harm” to the airline industry, C. A. Howlett, US Airways’ top government affairs officer, outlined the challenges the industry — and US Airways in particular — face in the policy environment. His primary focus was the pending FAA reauthorization bill. Put off since [...]

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Breaking: Randy Babbitt picked for FAA

TEMPE — Just heard from one of the other bloggers here that former Air Line Pilots Association head Randy Babbitt has been picked to lead the Federal Aviation Administration. Here’s the news as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

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LaHood’s legislative record on aviation

One of the surprises about the rumored Ray LaHood nomination for secretary of transportation — set to be announced tomorrow — is that he has so little transportation experience. He is on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and would thus be well positioned to oversee Barack Obama’s planned burst of infrastructure spending. LaHood did serve [...]

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Reason: keep Mary Peters at DOT

Shikha Dalmia, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, an L.A.-based think thank that sets itself apart in the right-of-center policy community by focusing on transportation, offers a libertarian perspective on the best and worst cabinet appointees that Barack Obama might choose at the Department of Transportation.
Dalmia writes that one of the top priorities of [...]

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A pilot’s take on Duane Woerth rumors

There’s a lot of virtual ink being spilled in the blogosphere about Obama’s shortlist for FAA administrator. Some of those rumored to be under consideration include Representative Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), the chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee; Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.); Clinton-era FAA chief Jane Garvey;  Robert Herbert, an aide to Senator Harry Reid [...]

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A memo to the next president

If you’re a regular reader of the Aviation Policy Blog (and I hope you are; the best way to keep up to date is to subscribe to my feed), you’re well aware of how aviation is playing out in the 2008 election (or the extent to which it isn’t). In today’s Wall Street Journal, “Middle [...]

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What’s wrong with commercial aviation?

My story in The American magazine is now up on its website. Here’s the lede: “Thirty years ago this October, the era of affordable mass air travel was unleashed. Why was this revolution stalled, and what can be done to finish it?”

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