00:00Thank you. Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chair Cruz, for holding this hearing today. I want to thank
00:07the witnesses for testifying. I'm going to talk a little bit about airspace obstruction. As in
00:14response to the unique airspace challenges over Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas,
00:19I authored a section, section 744, of last year's FAA reauthorization to improve the agency's
00:26airspace obstruction analysis. The law now requires the FAA to undertake a robust analysis of potential
00:33airspace hazards near certain airports due to factors like building and hotel construction
00:38near the runways. However, nearly a year after the reauthorization bill was signed into law,
00:46there seems to be little progress in implementing this statutory requirement.
00:51So, Mr. Heibeck, can you please provide the committee with an update about where the FAA
00:56is on enforcement of section 44, and will you commit to ensuring that the FAA follows the
01:01law and implements this critical aspect of FAA reauthorization and continue to keep us informed?
01:11Yes, Senator. The Office of Airports is responsible for on-airport evaluations, and I'm going to
01:16defer to my colleague, Frank McIntosh. Thank you. On this particular provision. Thank you, Wayne. I do
01:23know that it's been slow, ma'am, but I have checked in with the team. I've looked at the obstruction
01:29clearances and making sure this is done, and I will say that while it's slow going, they are
01:33incorporating the two statutes that were in the authorization bill, and in regards to Las Vegas,
01:39that is moving forward. And so, can we reach out to your office for a status update on that, please?
01:44We would love to. Thank you. I'm also going to talk a little bit about capacity at Harry Reid Airport,
01:51because Las Vegas has long been the world's leading entertainment destination. We're quickly
01:55becoming a global destination for sports as well, and the city is hosting nearly 40 significant sporting
02:02events. We hosted them just last year. These major events bring tourists and participants from all over
02:08the world to travel on the larger jet planes as well as private jets to our airports. Harry Reid
02:14International, we were proud to welcome over 58 million visitors in 2024, the most in our history.
02:21While we still want more visitors to the Silver State, at this rate experts expect Las Vegas Airport
02:27to reach capacity within five years, at which point the airport will not be able to handle any additional
02:33flights. So, Mr. Hybeck, I assume you're aware that officials from Clark County, Nevada, where Harry
02:39Reid International Airport is located, have been working with the FAA for years to build a new
02:44supplemental airport in Southern Nevada, which the local economy greatly needs. I know FAA has made great
02:49progress on the issue. I would really like your commitment to keeping officials at Harry Reid
02:54International Airport, my team, directly informed. Do I have your commitment to do this?
03:00Yes, we will continue to work with the airport sponsor. I know I've been engaging directly with
03:05this with our regional director, and we are preparing to issue a notice of intent to conduct
03:10the environmental impact statement on the Southern Nevada supplemental airport, and I will keep your
03:15office informed. That's fantastic. We need it sooner rather than later. And in my minute left,
03:20I'm going to talk about what's a lot of topic today, aging infrastructure at all of our airports,
03:28right? So, the average FAA air traffic control facility we all know is about 60 years old. More
03:34than half of terminal facilities over 40 years old. These facilities regularly operate with degraded
03:42technology systems. It results in lack of accurate wind speed, direction calculations, the failure of
03:47radio radio frequencies. We've seen this within congested airspace, the malfunctioning of runway lights,
03:55terrible at night. In many airports, they lack functioning radar systems to track airborne and
04:00taxiing planes, meaning that some controllers have no visual awareness of the aircraft they're directing,
04:07especially in poor weather conditions. Last year's FAA reauthorization requires the FAA to deploy the
04:13latest airport surface situational awareness technologies that track runway and aircraft vehicle
04:20movements in order to prevent collisions. We've been seeing them in the news. We want to increase
04:25deployment of surface surveillance technology at all large and medium hub airports. So again,
04:32Mr. Hybeck or whoever else can think they can answer this in a proper way, can you provide us with an
04:38update about how the deployment and implementation of this is going? I believe you're referring to the
04:44surface awareness initiative, ma'am? Yes. Yes, it's going very well. I know that we've already deployed it at
04:49over 30 sites so far, and we're on target to, I believe it's another 70. Is that right, Jody?
04:57Another 70. Well, I'll get you the numbers, but I will tell you this. We're very excited about this
05:01new technology. It uses the newest technology available to us, which is ADS-B. So it allows us
05:07to deploy this new capability much more economically, but also much more efficiently, and it gets it in the
05:13hands of the controllers that really, really need it. So we're excited about this technology, and we want
05:18to get it deployed as quickly as you do. But we are on target. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I appreciate it.
05:22Yield back.
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