As expected, President Joe Biden has renewed the nomination of Phil Washington to head up the FAA. The agency has been without an administrator for almost a year and there were no hearings to confirm him in the last Senate. The new Senate sat on Jan. 2 and Washington was among several second-time nominations put forth by Biden. Despite the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, Washington’s nomination might be contentious.
Washington has been the CEO of Denver International Airport for more than a year, but that’s his first aviation job. Before KDEN, he was CEO of the Los Angeles transit system. He was recently named in a search warrant resulting from a corruption investigation at the City of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Acting Administrator Billy Nolen has been presiding over a busy time at the agency.
“Despite the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, Washington’s nomination might be contentious.”
Don’t poke the beard.
Yeah, that too!
“He was recently named in a search warrant resulting from a corruption investigation at the City of Los Angeles”
Translation: Despite the Democrats’ majority in LA, his actions were seen by them to warrant an investigation of him for corruption. We need good and knowledgeable people running administrative posts so yea, I hope his nomination is “contentious”.
The agency has been without an administrator for almost a year. What’s that telling us?
It tells us that administrative bureaucracy is not the main ingredient required for an airfoil to generate lift.
Perhaps not, but getting approval for an environmentally-friendly fuel for the engine, certainly is. Or clearing the bureaucratic constipation blocking enlightened medical approvals. Or establishing rules that make it clear that an uncrewed vehicle carrying a pizza must always give way to ones carrying “bags of mostly saltwater”.
Or put another way, how many days could you hold out if your wives stopped taking care of you guys?
Considering the inauspicious start to the new Congress, I wouldn’t expect much action on the administrator approval process any time soon. Personally, I’ll just be happy if the FAA will get moving on approvals of so many things stuck in limbo for the past two years. I’m not sure a new administrator will have any effect on that.
This is a Senate duty. I think they were avoiding the unpleasant duty of embarrassing the nominee. He should withdraw, claim he’s been treated unfairly, and go clear his name. I don’t know about his guilt or innocence, but there’s a lot of political prosecutions and accusations and the parties need to clean up their own messes in this regard. The press also should take a tougher stance on politically motivated, prosecutions. In much of the world, they are the targets of such misbehavior.
Translation; If it looks like crap, and smells like crap, then it must be crap. Adding sugar won’t make it into a brownie.
This is almost like April Fools day in January. First this article and then the one about F-117s still flying. What’s next? The Air Force will start training pilots for a tail wheel replacement for the A-10? Oh, wait…
This re-nomination should not be a surprise to anyone.