With only three votes in opposition, the U-S Senate has approved the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill. Senator John Hoeven says the 33-Billion dollar spending package includes a number of things for North Dakota. He says along with money for Airport Improvement grants and the Essential Air Service program the reauthorization also includes some protections for the flying public…
“…For example, if your bags don’t arrive when you do, then you get those baggage fees back… and you should… just trying to make sure that airlines provide that fair treatment to the flying public. And there’s also some provisions that are important in terms of airport security and aviation security and obviously that’s something we have to working on all the time with the threat that we have from terrorism.”
Hoeven says the bill also extends congressional authorization for the six UAV test sites – including the Northern Plains UAS Test Site at Grand Forks. The original authorization was set to expire in 2017...
“…We can’t have that type of insecurity so it’s very important that we included this legislation and that – now combined with the fact we’ve been working with the Air Force -- I think Grand Forks has a real shot at getting a “Reaper” Wing at Grand Forks Air Force Base. We’ll also continue to recruit companies into Grand Sky. And so you can see we’ve got a lot going on here and that’s the way it should be. We need to keep working to keep building this momentum.”
Hoeven says the extension will provide another 5 years for UAS research and development at the test sites.