Bedford Vows Continued Vigilance Regardless of NDAA

The FAA last week learned of the controversial Section 373 in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which eases certain safety measures put in place after the January 29 collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA), rather than being given the traditional heads-up, according to agency Administrator Bryan Bedford.

However, testifying before the U.S, House aviation subcommittee today, Bedford stressed that the Department of Defense has been a “great partner” surrounding the restrictions implemented around KDCA, and the FAA does not plan to revert to the safety standards in place before the accident.

Marking his first testimony before Congress since becoming FAA administrator in July, Bedford told the subcommittee that he can’t comment on pending legislation but that “normally when language like this is discussed, it's customary to reach out to the FAA and ask for a technical consult or some form of technical advisory. I can tell you that did not happen in this case. We learned of Section 373 essentially when everybody else did last week.”

Having said that, he stressed, “Our intent is not to go back to where we were prior to January the 29th…We are not going to go back into a position of less safe airspace environment. We will monitor the airspace with vigilance.”

He conceded gaps existed before the accident. “The accident at Reagan National on January 29, I think, shook the FAA to its core. Safety is our foundational mission,” he said, adding that there were hard lessons learned from the agency. “Those gaps have been closed, and they will remain closed as long as I'm the administrator.”

When pressed about the DOD, Bedford praised the partnership with the military. “There’s been a lot of learning on both sides.” The agencies are striving for more transparency and more collaboration, but he conceded, “This new muscle memory's a bit unnatural. But I will say that we've had great cooperation from the Pentagon in terms of how we've enabled new restrictions in the Capital Region airspace.”

Beford added that he anticipates that to continue as the departments renegotiate a memorandum of agreement covering operations in the capital region.

He also updated the progress of ATC modernization, saying the FAA has committed more than $6 billion of the $12.5 billion allocated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law in early July.

“We need to make sure that modernization gets done, gets done on time, and achieves the results that we've set before this committee—which is to deploy new technology within the next three years,” Bedford told lawmakers, adding that plans are for use of off-the-shelf technology, “not some new technology that may or may not be created over the next several years.”

Providing insight into the selection of Peraton to act as a prime integrator, he said the organization will guide the FAA on modernization execution, particularly on challenging issues from analog systems into digital systems. “These are not competencies the FAA has internally. We need assistance from people who've done this before. Peraton brings us that experience. “

As far as modernization, the FAA—in concert with the Department of Transportation—has “adopted a mantra of think slow, move fast, understanding what the end state of modernization needs to look like, and then determining how best to plot a course to get there as opposed to just let's go out and spend money.” With that in mind, officials have spent the last several months plotting what the end state of the National Airspace System should look like. “It's an exciting vision,” he said. 

In the short term, he said, “Half of [the $6 billion already committed] is on telecom infrastructure, new radar surveillance systems, all of which will be deployed over the next two-and-a-half years.”

Bedford reiterated that the $12.5 billion was a down payment but that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy would seek about $20 billion more to help lift air traffic management into the cloud. He said the $12.5 million would make the airspace more efficient, “but it would still be antiquated.”