Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee, delivered the following statement at the subcommittee’s hearing on the “State of American Aviation.” The remarks are as prepared for delivery.

Thank you, Chairman LoBiondo, for calling today’s hearing on the State of American Aviation.

Mr. Chairman, this hearing provides us with an excellent opportunity to look back on 2013, and the challenges and successes we have had in our first year as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Aviation Subcommittee.

Without a doubt, 2013 has been a tough year for aviation here in Washington, DC. We started the year at odds over sequestration, with our aviation system caught in the middle. In April, air traffic controller furloughs caused by sequestration led to a rash of flight delays, and Congress raided the airport capital improvement grant program to put controllers back to work. Then again in October, the FAA was partially shut down for sixteen days, and 12,000 FAA employees were furloughed. FAA employees wasted countless hours planning the 2013 furloughs, the sequester budget and the shutdown.

Mr. Chairman, we called this hearing to explore the state of American aviation. Simply put, American aviation cannot afford the American government to keep doing business the way it did in 2013. We need balanced and responsible solutions for our fiscal and budgetary issues.

Yet, Mr. Chairman, while we started this year under difficult circumstances, you and I have continued to work in the bipartisan way we have always worked. And we are ending this year with bipartisan accomplishments that we should be proud of, and that bode well for the work we will be doing together during the next FAA reauthorization.

Looking forward, the force of globalization and the growth of emerging international markets present both opportunities and challenges for American aviation. We simply can’t write a reauthorization bill for 2015 without taking a look at what’s happening elsewhere in the world.

According to the International Monetary Fund, GDP in emerging economies is growing at approximately 6 percent per year, while in advanced economies, such as the United States, GDP is only growing at approximately 2 percent.

Earlier this year, Governor Inslee asked me to attend the Paris Air Show in his stead. That event made it crystal clear: the aviation industry is global, it is competitive, and there are new entrants in the market every day. What happens in Shanghai, Dubai, New Delhi, Moscow, and Bueno Aires matters here in the United States.

The Chinese national aviation authority indicated that traffic to, from, and within China increased 10.6 percent in 2012 alone. Over the next twenty years, Boeing predicts China will need nearly 6,000 new airplanes.

The emergence of new international markets is already having an impact on U.S. aviation. U.S. manufacturers are adjusting their strategies to target new customers in emerging international markets.

In my home state of Washington, the aerospace industry is the largest exporting sector by dollar value, accounting for $27 billion of the state’s total $64.6 billion in exports in 2011.

Similarly, U.S. airlines are drawing an increasing amount of their revenue from international flights. In the year 2000, U.S. legacy airlines earned an average of 25 percent of their system-wide revenue from international services. Today, international services constitute almost 40 percent of their system-wide revenue.

Congress and the administration must ensure that American aviation can compete effectively in a global marketplace, while protecting and preserving a strong middle class aviation workforce here at home.

And, Mr. Chairman, together we took important steps this year to enhance the American aviation industry’s global competitiveness.

For example, the Aviation Subcommittee led the effort this year to enact H.R. 1848, the bipartisan “Small Airplane Revitalization Act of 2013”. This new law requires the FAA to update its small airplane certification regulations, enabling U.S. manufacturers to more quickly bring new technologies to market both in the U.S. and internationally.

Likewise, Mr. Chairman, the Aviation Subcommittee conducted important oversight hearings this year examining the FAA’s certification process. Based on issues raised at these hearings, yesterday you and I requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) undertake a comparative study of U.S. certification processes relative to our international trading partners.

If we can glean lessons from international regulatory agencies which lead to a more efficient U.S. certification process, then we should apply those lessons. But always, we must maintain the highest level of safety in our process.

Mr. Chairman, you and I also asked the GAO to examine challenges faced by U.S. aircraft manufacturers when navigating foreign certification processes.

FAA certification is the gold standard for safety. Therefore, the U.S. government must “stand behind its brand” when U.S. manufactures receive FAA certifications, but encounter red tape doing business in foreign markets.

I appreciate the Chairman’s focus on safety. Safety is the FAA’s top priority and it is mine as well. The need to maintain our focus on aviation safety was made clear with the crash of Asiana Flight 214 in July. We must learn from this tragedy and do everything we can to prevent it in the future.

One way that we moved forward on safety was with the finalization of rules for pilot training and experience. These represent significant safety improvements from lessons we learned from the fatal Colgan Air crash. I am proud that we worked together with the families from that tragedy to put stronger safety rules in place.

But as always, there will continue to be work to be done to make sure the skies are safe.

Where the aviation industry faces global challenges, like climate change, these challenges should be addressed through international cooperation. That is why, last month, the bipartisan leadership of this Committee sent a letter urging Secretary Foxx to hold U.S. carriers harmless from a proposed unilateral European Union Emissions Trading Scheme.

The United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization has set forth a multilateral process for developing a global approach to aviation emissions. The international community has spoken on this issue through the United Nations, and the European Union should be discouraged from “going it alone.”

Additionally, while the American aviation industry must benefit from the growth of global markets, we must also ensure that globalization does not harm the American aviation workforce.

Earlier this year, the administration announced that the United States Trade Representative (USTR) will attempt to negotiate a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union. Historically, international air transport services agreements have been negotiated bilaterally by the Department of State and the Department of Transportation, under the oversight of this Subcommittee.

Issues such as foreign ownership and control of U.S. airlines have serious implications for American workers and U.S. national security. The Departments of State and Transportation possess the necessary expertise to negotiate on behalf of the U.S. aviation industry and its employees on a bilateral basis. Therefore, I do not believe that air transport service agreements should be considered in the context a comprehensive trade agreement negotiated by the USTR.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about these issues and others that are important to address during the upcoming FAA reauthorization.