@ BFSGrad
A number of interesting - and likely important - items emerged from the hearing, imo (I watched until the Chair left).
The Admin. referred, several times, to the existence of "thousands of systems" within what sounded like he was talking about the overall NOTAM system -- or possibly he meant within the total FAA airspace management and control functions and operations. No one, however, asked for clarification.
The Chair pressed for further responses to the question of redundancy. Inasmuch as mistaken deletion of data files in one system causes that system to stop operating properly or stops it operating at all, and then the (supposed) backup systems fail as a result of the same mistaken file deletion, then the backups were not redundant. (Example of redundancy by the Chair: your electric service goes out, but your generator works despite that.) I'm gathering that this absence of actual redundancy indeed is the case at FAA even though the Admin. worded his responses deftly to avoid saying so in an ordinarily comprehensible fashion.
The video shown by Sen. Cruz . . . he must be a very busy Senator indeed - didn't he realize the thread on this forum contains a pretty close to exact - or at least not seriously inaccurate - graphic representation? But daylight? C'mon, gimme a break.
Not least, in one exchange, the Admin. referred to the ICAO standard for present-day updating of NOTAMs (most likely not a Standard capital-S as such yet). The particular Senator had not mentioned ICAO, and turns out, is a pilot. I saw this as, hope is not lost.
As for the giddy, goofy, political pandering to causes of the moment, left and right, well, the Admin. displayed a deft touch imo. Maybe the White House should withdraw the pending nomination and nominate instead Mr. Nolen for Administrator of the FAA.
Okay, it's not everyone's idea of time well-spent. Still, the contents of today's hearing will have influence on the content of the eventual reauthorization legislation, and the importance of that shouldn't need anything further said.