Low-hanging fruit won’t fix this aviation mess

In the weeks leading up to Memorial Day, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves issued “straight talk” newsletters on his support for law enforcement and his opposition to government waste. He praised the “big, beautiful tax cut bill,” called for a more secure border and requested investigation into cancer cases at a local school.

There’s no harm in taking positions that align with voters in your district, but it’s worth asking if something important is flying under the radar.

Put it this way: If you’re flying into Newark Liberty International Airport (or any airport for that matter), how concerned are you about the border or tax cut extensions until the wheels touch the ground?

On two occasions within the last month, air traffic controllers lost radio and radar contact with flights at Newark for 90 seconds. Following a fatal in-flight collision in Washington, the Newark outages serve as a terrifying reminder of the rickety state of aviation infrastructure in the country.

As chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Graves has enormous clout that should be directed toward fixing this mess. Now it comes as good news that the massive federal spending bill that moved through the House contains $12.5 billion in badly needed modernization to the nation’s air traffic infrastructure.

It shouldn’t have taken this long.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is blaming the Biden Administration for doing little to fix problems in the aviation industry. This is not as off-base as it sounds.

Put it this way: If you’re flying into Newark, are Biden’s electric vehicle charging stations going to do anything for you when the tower loses radio contact?

Biden lavished a lot of money on U.S. infrastructure, but much of that investment seemed to go to the green agenda instead of fixing problems with the Federal Aviation Administration. It’s a fair point that merits discussion.

But the problem for Duffy is he’s the transportation secretary right now, not Pete Buttigieg. The problem for Graves is he’s chairman of the transportation committee, not the border czar or ways and means chairman.

As chairman of the committee devoted to transportation, Graves should be demanding answers from those who are in position to make things safer for Americans right now. Low-hanging rhetorical fruit won’t fix this mess.