I.A.M. & A.W. LEGISLATIVE REPORT
by William Theodore

AVIATION SAFETY AND THE FOREIGN REPAIR STATION.

 As the Florida State Council of Machinists Area 1 Vice President, part of my duty is to attend I.A.M. Local Lodge 2508 (Orlando) meetings from time to time. This is done to keep the membership informed of any legislative issues of importance. Since I was to be in the Orlando area I also took the opportunity to make a congressional district visit. This was mainly done due to the issue in the next paragraph.

On more than one occasion this publication has reported on the failure of the Bush Administration to comply with public law 108-176, the Vision-100 Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act. You may recall that this law, in short, requires security audits of all international repair stations for security and or possible terrorist threats. The bill was signed on December 12, 2003 and continues to be ignored by the FAA, TSA and the Administration. In March of this year we learned the FAA granted itself another year extension for enforcing the oversight of these foreign aircraft repair stations. The Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Transportation has publicly voiced its concerns over the practice of Northwest and Jet Blue sending aircraft maintenance work to places such as Singapore and El Salvador. Comes May of this year and even the republican controlled Senate Commerce Committee couldn’t accept the foot dragging on foreign aircraft repair station security. The Committee introduced S. 1052 to force the TSA and FAA into issuing security rules within 90 days and to complete security audits six months later.

Knowing that Senate Bill 1052 is in need of a House of Representatives companion bill, a visit to Orlando’s Congressman John Mica (R-FL) office may be time well spent. John Mica sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and is Chair of that committee -Aviation Subcommittee. So in the end, that makes him a very good candidate to introduce a companion bill to S. 1052 on the House of Representatives side of Washington law making.

The next thing I will do is ask Tom Trotter, Grand Lodge Political and Legislative office representative, to follow up with a Washington, D.C. visit to reinforce the idea that Congressman Mica introduces a companion bill to S.1052.

In all honesty, I don’t expect that to happen till January of 2006. It’s almost October and the lawmakers have their plates full and it would not be likely to address this important issue.

I am currently continuing the process of local district office congressional visits. As always if you wish to attend with me and be involved in any other way let me know via cell 813-323-4871.