After a somewhat contentious confirmation hearing on March 1 before the Senate Commerce Committee, the nomination of Phil Washington to the office of FAA Administrator now appears in deeper trouble. The Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Sam Graves, and the Senate Commerce Committee ranking Member, Sen. Ted Cruz, have today issued a joint letter stating that the Congress will not pass a legislative waiver to allow Mr. Washington, who served in the U.S. Army, to become Administrator - an office which by statute must be limited to a "civilian." It's hardball time in D.C., though Opening Day is still about a month away.
(I'm posting this item on this thread for the self-evident reason that the incident in Austin TX certainly has serious elements pertaining to much of the processes and structures, organizationally speaking, of the Federal Aviation Administration and the NAS, and quite obviously, with Austin situated in the State of Texas, well, you know the rest.)
Here is a link to the House T&I Committee webpage, which features a press release on this development. At the end of the press release, a link is included which leads to a pdf of the correspondence to President Biden.
https://transportation.house.gov/new...umentID=406178
Having written a decent number, at least, of power-play letters in my legal career - but none addressing legislative matters or presidential appointments (. . . . so far), I'll just say one or more legal eagles who know their way around the triple-action world of policy, politics and law really went all out in putting their keyboards-to-screen, or whatever is the digital age equivalency of pen-to-paper.
(For the purists out there, yes, the correct name of the relevant Committee in the United States Senate is the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.)