Scott Perry

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, this amendment strikes sections 206 and 207 of the underlying bill that restricts the sale of reserved N-Numbers for profit, or as the underlying bill calls it, N-Number profiteering. Instead of addressing the real pressures and pressing issues facing the aviation industry, such as serious staffing shortages--pilots, controllers, employees of the FAA, mechanics, et cetera--that are causing massive delays and cancellations all around the country, Congress feels the need to interfere with small businesses transferring and selling N-Numbers. What an egregious crime. For those who don't know, N-Numbers are the clearly marked registration numbers for civil aircraft within the United States. They are transferable and reusable. When you see an airplane go by that says N123456 on the tail, that is the N-Number. When the aircraft identifies itself to air traffic control, it says, ``Air traffic control, this is November 12345 inbound,'' or whatever. Currently, small businesses have sprung up that reserve and sell these N-Numbers, providing aircraft owners with the ability to obtain their desired N-Number, much like a vanity plate on a car, while allowing these businessowners to make a living. These private transactions between consenting parties provide value to both the buyer and the seller. Otherwise, these transactions just wouldn't happen. Unless the plane owner seeks a specific N-Number, they are able to get one of the 454,910 N-Numbers currently available for reservation directly from the FAA for $10 apiece. They can get them right now for $10. None of that has changed. In other words, no one is forcing anyone to do business with the N-Number brokers unless they want to. The practice of reserving and selling these N-Numbers is not harming anyone. Instead, it is an innovative commercial venture providing value to all parties. It certainly is not something for Congress to be interfering with and bothering itself with over the behest of private plane owners. This amendment removes this gross government overreach and allows freedom of enterprise in America to continue. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to stand up for the market, protect contractual freedom, and support this amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for his comments regarding our work in the subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I acknowledge that the bill is not only about this issue, but the pressing issues that we have, the ones that you already talked about, I would say that the bill could do a lot more on those issues. Those are the things that concern the American people: safety, access, and canceled flights. I will tell you that it is great that we are mandating the FAA to do something. We are mandating that the American people have to do something. We are mandating that the FAA fully complement controllers. That doesn't mean controllers are coming out of school. That doesn't mean controllers want to take the job. You can mandate it all you want, but if the people aren't willing to do the job or are not available to do the job, they are not going to be there to do the job. I see that as a wholly inadequate response and solution to a pressing problem that I predict is going to get worse between now and the next 5-year reauthorization. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment. I think it is a good amendment. If we have to deal with the other problem directly, then let's deal directly with the other problem of the software and not punish everybody. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the chairman of the full committee and his perspective on this. Nobody likes the pirating or the abuse, so to speak, of the system, but to disallow it altogether is not the answer. To me, this is Congress, and if this is such an egregious problem, then we can handle the software issue directly without destroying an industry that is obviously good for the buyer and the seller. Quite honestly, I don't know how many of us who have bought and sold a car and transferred the license number said: ``Oh, my goodness, if I don't have the same license number, well, I can't sell the car.'' I am not really worried about the license number. I just need to be able to drive the car. If it is such a problem, why don't we address that portion of the problem and not cut everybody out of the deal? Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted YEA on roll call No. 295.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment strikes the word ``vertiport'' from the definition of ``heliport'' for the purposes of AIP funding, the same funding that the gentleman on the other side of the aisle just mentioned that we need so much of. As a helicopter pilot, I am very interested in the funding for heliports, but vertiports are going to use some of that funding; meanwhile, not paying anything in. Let me tell you, Mr. Chair. Vertiports exist for the purpose of advanced air mobility and electric vertical takeoff and landing or eVTOL vehicles, which only exist in prototype and other nascent stages. Mr. Chair, eVTOL is so immature in its development that there is a reality index that actually exists--an Advanced Air Mobility Reality Index. The reality index ranks companies and essentially determines whether there is a reality that these things are ever going to even come to the market, be produced, and be viable. Is that something we should be investing in? These are ranked and combined to describe the likelihood of the aircraft certification and production on scale. Again, this is a ranking of the likelihood that these things even get produced, much less used. Furthermore, if these vehicles become the norm, Jetson style like their proponents envision, allowing AAM vehicles to receive the benefits of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund without paying into it, evokes the same debate we are currently having about the government- mandated transition to electric automobiles which don't pay into the highway fund. They don't pay in, but they use it. The same thing here. These vehicles want to use it, but they don't want to pay into it. They are robbing from everybody else that has to use it that actually currently exists and are used. I haven't even gotten into the drawbacks of the potential vehicles, but how about being concerned about adequate storage for hazardous materials to respond to lithium and other critical mineral-related fires? The fires are challenging enough for firefighters to address on the ground or at sea, let alone having them occur between skyscrapers. If you wonder, do these fires actually exist, you can just search the internet. It is widely known. You can see the electric vehicles burning at the charger, burning people's garages, burning and burning and burning. There is a problem because they are unstable. If you want to get in the air and fly in one of these things, God bless you, but your money is going to be transferred to deal with these things that don't pay into the fund. They don't pay anything in, yet they are going to draw money out. This system works when the users pay into it. That is how it works. Otherwise, these folks up here are going to have to pay extra because there is not going to be enough money in the fund to pay for all of it. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from the other side of the aisle, but I want to clarify. It is not a cut. We are actually increasing the spend; just not as much. Now, I know in Washington, oh, my goodness, who knew the request was up to $4 billion? I imagine they would take more than $4 billion if we gave it to them. We are broke. Hello, America. Wake up, everybody. I have a news flash for you. We don't have anymore money. We are borrowing money to pay the bills. We are borrowing money to pay for things that we can't afford. That is what we are trying to fix here. If you want to save some money somewhere else and spend it here, I am all ears. Let's talk about it. Something has to give. These people can't afford any more. They are not getting more out of this. I have been in the room. I used to sit on appropriations in the State House. I know how it goes. Well, we spent this much this year or last year. We are just going to add some more this year. Nobody goes through line by line and says, oh, well, this costs this much more because concrete costs X and labor costs Y. Nobody does that. They just add money to it. It is all arbitrary, and we know it. Everybody in this place knows it. That is why we should spend less because we don't have the money to spend. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, since my good friend brought it up, it was a bipartisan agreement. So the world knows that it was a bipartisan agreement here, known in Congress as what is called a four-corners deal: two on their side, two on our side. There are 435 Members of Congress. I wasn't involved. I wasn't one of the four. You weren't one of the four. Nobody else here was one of the four. They decided to spend all these billions of dollars. They didn't come to me and say, well, we need this much for concrete and this much for research, because they decided, and this is what is in the bill. Heaven forbid anybody challenge it. Mr. Chair, we do not have the money. We should reduce the authorization. It is still an increase, just not as much, and it recognizes the fact that our country is broke. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just like the last amendment, this amendment recognizes the fact that our country is out of money. We are borrowing money to pay our bills, and we are paying for things that we can't afford. We are paying for things that these folks can't afford. Mr. Chair, this amendment reduces the authorization levels in section 101, which is airport planning; section 103, which is operations; and section 1111, which is research and development. The authorization levels in the underlying bill represent a significant increase from the levels set by Congress in the 2018 reauthorization bill. For example, the underlying bill raises the authorizations by significant amounts from FY 2023 to FY 2024: 101 by $650 million, 103 by $1.2 billion, and 1111 by $41 million. This amendment reduces the growth of these authorization levels while still increasing the funds authorized for FAA, resulting in a net savings of nearly $5 billion. If we are going to raise the level, understanding and recognizing inflation caused by out-of-control spending in this place, we are going to recognize and understand that the FAA still has to continue to operate, but we are not going to raise it so much. Our national debt is out of control, and it is this mindless, rapid growth of spending in Washington that has put our Nation on the brink of catastrophe. Moreover, this massive increase in funding is not resulting in a safer or more efficient FAA mission. That is their mission: safety, more efficiency. It instead represents a significant misallocation of resources to woke and green missions at the expense of safety and financial sanity. We must reorient the FAA back to its original mission and ensure the funding we provide to them is appropriate to meet the moment while not wasting taxpayer resources. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, we don't need to provide more subsidies to support this climate smart agriculture practice and production of aviation biofuel feedstocks. It actually makes your food more expensive because we are burning your fuel in an aircraft instead of pumping it out of the ground where the fuel has come from and has worked very, very well. There are up to $3 billion in DOE loan guarantees. I want to win the race, too, but the Federal Government picking winners and losers ensures that we probably will lose the race because we are going to pick the wrong one, as the Federal Government normally does. Once again, this is an absurd policy. If it were viable at all, the private sector would invest in it. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the clarification, and I marvel at the fact that we can include the definition and the term in preparation for something that right now doesn't really exist practically. It is in people's minds, and it is on a computer. There are prototypes out there. We can do that, but we can't find any way to charge and make sure they are paying their fair share into the fund that they are going to use the infrastructure of, right? The infrastructure is created by the fund, and they are going to use it, but they ain't going to pay. We can't figure that out, but we sure can make sure that they have access to everything else that everyone is paying for. Ladies and gentlemen, in Washington, D.C., this is how things go awry. This is how you go broke. This is how you can't afford things that you need to do, like pay for your highways, filled now with electric vehicles that are not paying into the system, paying nothing for the roads that they are on, weighing thousands of pounds in excess of most of the regular cars that are using the road now and are paying the fee. Do you know what we are going to do because we are so brilliant and because that is working so well? We are going to double down and do it in the air, as well. That is awesome. It is not awesome, ladies and gentlemen. Do you know what else is not awesome? Most of the materials sourced in this stuff come from the Communist Chinese, made by slave labor, whether it is the actual slave labor in concentration camps in east Turkistan or whether it is the child slave labor in the Congo feeding the Chinese machine, feeding the machine here so we can virtue signal that we are doing everything clean, that we are electrified and are not going to charge anybody for it. Somebody is going to pay. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment strikes the section that allows the administration to consider expanding the CLEEN Program. Now, as a reminder, in the CLEEN Program, the FAA provides awards to industry to develop and integrate technology that will reduce noise, emissions, and fuel burn. Now, looking over some of the projects, some of them aren't completely useless: improvements to wing performance and thermal efficiency for turbines may well contribute to cost savings. But that actually begs the question: Why can't these projects be funded by private industry alone? Surely, if they improve fuel efficiency, that is a clear profit- driven motive to invest in new technologies. The program also funds the development of ``alternative'' jet fuels which is just another facet of the left's crusade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet completely arbitrary and unscientific targets. The administration aims to achieve ``net zero'' greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector by 2050. Mr. Chairman, I want you to think about that because you won't be flying when that happens. The so-called sustainable aviation fuel is critical to achieving this foolhardy goal. However, this fuel doesn't change the physics of an engine. The engine still emits carbon dioxide. Instead, emissions are actually produced out of waste products cooking oil and agricultural waste instead of fossil fuels, and then the engine burns that. That is what you are paying for, Mr. Chairman. The program makes taxpayers pay for that fuel. These fuels are extremely expensive and not widely adopted, as low as 0.1 percent at last counting. The CLEEN Program acknowledges these shortcomings. Phase II simply furthered the understanding of key biofuel properties in demonstrating the viability of them. So it acknowledges it is actually not really changing anything, but we are just spending a lot of money burning cooking oil in an aviation engine. There is absolutely no reason we should actually be expanding this program that is pouring taxpayer dollars into technologies into which the public sector is unwilling to invest. They are unwilling to invest because there is no money in this. The only way it works is if the taxpayers pour all their money into it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this is a nearly 50-year-old temporary program. It is indicative of everything in Washington: Nothing ever dies here. We just spend more and more money. The DOT literally picks winners and losers, where neighboring airports have to compete against the Federal Government, which subsidizes routes for the very same market. Approved subsidies include funding leisure routes. That is not essential. That is leisure. Flights on EAS routes are relatively empty compared to nonsubsidized flights, and the obvious outcome of subsidizing these routes is that they are not economically viable. That is why they are subsidized. It is because nobody really needs them. There are other options that are reasonable. The industry continues to suffer from a pilot shortage, a mechanic shortage, labor all across the board, ATC, et cetera. All we are doing is making it worse by misallocating these resources. Pilots are flying planes to places where there aren't any customers, and they are canceling routes where people need to fly. The bill does make significant improvements. However, the program remains inherently unfair and represents a significant misallocation of resources at a time when we can ill afford to do so. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, my friend on the other side of the aisle is a good man. He is just, I think, misdirected on this occasion. I will be clear. I don't want the administrator to be spending time approving this contract or that contract. I don't want him doing any of it. As far as hydrogen, I marvel at this premise that somehow the government is the only one that can figure this out. Somehow this country figured out and invented the internal combustion engine, the lightbulb, the airplane, and went to space. But heaven forbid we figure this out without the government and without these taxpayers being forced to pay for it. The third phase of the CLEEN Program is awarding more than $100 million for aircraft and engine companies to develop and demonstrate aircraft technologies that reduce fuel use, emissions, and noise. Relating to sustainable aviation gas, CLEEN funds are trying to research higher blends of biofuels to petroleum-based fuels which can affect seal performance. On average, this fuel costs three to five times more than conventional jet fuel. We already have the jet fuel. It is already efficient. It is already clean. We have already reduced emissions more than all the other countries combined. We already met the Paris climate accords requirements without being in the accord. Now, other barriers to adoption include risks related to adoption, including safety. Mr. Chairman, as a person who has sat behind the stick and who has been up in the air, I can tell you the pucker factor is pretty high when the engine quits. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be experimenting with fuel while I am up in the air, and I don't want the pilots up front to be forced to experiment with it because the government says so. We have something that works. The private sector can figure this out. They can invest in it, they can pay for it, and they can perfect it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I couldn't have said it better. I watched a movie that has been out for some time, but the question from the gentleman to his wife, he asked what he should do in a situation, and she said it is not what a Senator would do, not what a leader would do, but it is what a free man would do. That is the decision. That is what drives me. That is what drives my colleague. That is what we think should drive everyone here. Sure, we would love to have the approval of the body, of our compatriots here, but what is more important to us is that we do the right thing on every occasion, not because it is easy, not because it is tough to message it back home, or not because somebody is going to not have one of their programs funded at the level they want it funded at. We are way beyond that now. Our country is perilously close. We are borrowing money to pay our bills. We don't even print the money anymore. They just create it digitally. We don't even print it, it is so much, and no one around here seems to care. When we talk about saving $100 billion in the face of them spending $4 trillion, they recoil. How can we do that? Six months ago, we were spending that amount of money, and you would think that we were asking them to literally give their firstborn child or their right arm to try to get somewhere closer to living within our means. It is unacceptable. The time is now. The urgency is now. You cannot be free if you can't afford to live free. You are not free if you are not making your own decisions. That is where we are, Mr. Speaker. It has to stop here. It has to stop now.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be with my good friend from Texas, standing up for all Americans and all of America in the face of this place known as the swamp. There was a time when the country revered Washington, D.C., and no one ever would think of it as the swamp. I was listening to your comments about World War II and visiting the museum this summer. I hope to visit it myself. I think about just recently the use of the Defense Production Act. In the past, it was used to build tanks, airplanes, munitions, the equipment that the American soldier and servicemember needed to go fight tyranny, fascism, and totalitarianism and be successful. This government said to the factory that was building a car, that was building some other machine implement: Whoa, hold on a second here, bigger calling here. We have to save the world from tyranny, so you are no longer going to build a car. You are going to build a jeep. You are no longer going to build something for agricultural production. You are going to build a howitzer. Where are we in 2023? Well, we are going to use the Defense Production Act to force companies--there is no declaration of war, but we are going to force companies to build solar panels and batteries and electric vehicles, windmills, all sourced--my good friend from Texas already talked about where the sourcing of these raw materials come from. Even if you are not buying the solar panel from China, 90 percent of polysilicon comes from China, so we are forcing companies to build these things that, by the way, don't help. If you are talking about carbon, it actually costs more to produce these things than it does just to produce the energy that they in turn produce. That aside, it is using the Defense Production Act to force companies in America to do this because of a political whim. I make the argument that this is not needed and is not needed at this time, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle don't agree. I am astounded. I am astounded that some Okie from Muskogee, a guy from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, who has read the Constitution and says, my goodness, it is pretty obvious. The Federal Government is limited in its powers--limited. We are not supposed to be telling people what kind of car they can drive or if they are a business and want to produce one thing, and we are telling them, no, they are going to produce batteries instead because we demand it. Today in a hearing, the Energy Department is proposing rules for new efficiency standards on dryers, washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, you name it. If you have a gas stove in your home, they are going to exclude 95 percent of the market. They are saying, well, it is not a ban. I say to myself: Man, I am just a guy from Dillsburg who used to work with his hands underneath a car. I went to vo-tech school. If I understand that the Federal Government shouldn't be telling me this, why doesn't the rest of the country understand it? Am I missing something? I am not missing anything because when I did spend a week home, just like Mr. Roy did, the great Representative from the State of Texas, I can imagine what he heard. I will tell you what I heard. Time after time at the gas station, when I came out of the movie theater with my wife, when I am at the grocery store, people walk up to me, and they say: Keep fighting. They don't even tell me what to keep fighting on. They know what Chip Roy knows, what Scott Perry knows, that this country is rotting from the inside. They can't necessarily explain how it happened or what it is, but they know that they can't afford their groceries. They know that they can't afford to move to a bigger home. They know that they can't afford a mortgage on a car. They know that when their parents had a house, the biggest bill they had was their mortgage, and the second biggest bill if they decided to take out a car loan was a car loan. Now, the second biggest bill people have is health insurance. Health insurance--I thought we solved that problem in the United States of America. Do you know who sounds like they are getting rich? It is not doctors. It is somebody in the middle. It is bureaucrats siphoning off all the money. This town created it. This town solved the problem that it created by making the problem worse. Now my bosses and Chip's bosses, my constituents and yours, can't afford to live their lives in America and be healthy, take a vacation, have a decent car, a decent home, a decent education for their children. They are making choices: ``Well, I don't know. My house has a gas stove in it. I can't afford to rewire it for an electric stove, but the bureaucrats at the Department of Energy''--I talked to her today. I said: Do you know what is involved in changing from a gas stove to an electric stove? Do you know what is involved? Well, she had no idea, but thank goodness my colleague on the other side of the aisle said, well, if you have to run electricity, we have a $4,000 grant provided by the Federal Government to do that. The citizens who get up early in the morning, pack a lunch box, and kiss their kids good-bye are paying for that $4,000. They don't want to. They can't afford to. They want the $4,000 for their kids and their home, not the Federal Government to tell them how to spend it and what they are working for. It is absurd and obscene.