WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, called on House Speaker Johnson to schedule a new vote on the ROTOR Act, allowing for members who were absent due to severe snowstorms, to participate. Sen. Cantwell, co-leader of the ROTOR Act, spoke on the Senate floor earlier today. Here are her remarks as delivered:

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“Yesterday -- an unbelievable failure of the House of Representatives to pass what this body did as one of the elements in response to the horrific crash on the Potomac when an Army helicopter collided with a commercial jet, [together] carrying 67 individuals that were involved in this accident. No one survived.

“[T]he Senate, starting this work…pushed the ROTOR Act out with 100 votes. It literally said the military has to, in this instance, provide the same kind of signaling and information that would allow this airspace to work. One hundred votes out of the United States Senate.

“And as my colleague, Senator Cruz from Texas, tried to get this legislation passed as part of the NDAA, everybody said, ‘Okay, you know what? We'll do this, but we just don't want to do it on this NDAA bill.’ Okay, that should have raised suspicion right then and there, because this is one of the recommendations by the NTSB. Oh, actually, it's not one of the recent recommendations of the NTSB—THIS RECOMMENDATION HAS BEEN OUT OF THE NTSB FOR 20 YEARS. Twenty years, the NTSB has been saying that they believe that this kind of important [pilot] awareness in [air]space…around airports, needs to be better coordinated.

And so, for 20-plus years now, the NTSB has been making this recommendation and smartly, after the tragic accident that took 67 lives, we passed legislation out of here—100 votes. And my colleague, Senator Cruz, was promised by the Speaker that he would get this on the consent calendar. Oh, so yesterday, that's what happened—a vote in the House of Representatives [on] the consent calendar. That means there's not really opposition and you can just get two-thirds of the body and get the bill expedited, and it would have gone to the President's desk. But no, that's not what happened yesterday.

“At the 11th hour, people tried to subvert the will…of the families that were there to talk about safety. Subvert the NTSB from doing its job and advocating on behalf of the ROTOR Act. And all of a sudden, after a vote was called -- closed, quickly -- one vote short, this bill did not make it to the President's desk.

“So I'm calling on Speaker Johnson to get the 26 Members -- who were unable to participate in this vote because of weather in the Northeast -- to allow them to come back, schedule another vote and allow the United States House of Representatives to do its job. Get the ROTOR Act onto the President's desk so he can sign it and we can get safety. And let's move to the other reforms that have to happen to the FAA so that we can assure our airspace is safe.”

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