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Ted Cruz Asks Government Watchdog to Investigate DEI Hiring's Role in FAA ‘Near-Misses'
[Breitbart] Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suspects woke hiring practices might be behind recent airline near catastrophes and has asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate.Cruz wrote to the GAO Thursday in advance of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on “addressing close calls to improve aviation safety” to request an investigation into the extent to which recent ‘near-misses’ are a result of overworked controllers due to Obama’s woke policy change that prioritized diversity over graduates of air traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) programs, which resulted in thousands of qualified applicants leaving the controller pipeline. “There have been numerous Category A and B near-misses at U.S. airports this year,” Cruz, the top Republican on the committee, writes. “While many are still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, it appears controller error played a role in some of the runway incursions.” He continues, “To ensure only the most qualified controllers are recruited and retained, we must understand whether previous political decisions influenced the current state of the controller workforce.” The Obama administration in 2013 introduced a biographical questionnaire (BQ) into the Air Traffic Control (ATC) hiring process in an attempt to improve ATC diversity. In his letter, Cruz writes, “After the FAA adopted the BQ and began favoring ‘off-the-street’ hiring over graduates of air traffic CTI programs, thousands of qualified applicants left the controller pipeline.” His letter requests the GAO assess the impact of the biographical questionnaire on the controller workforce and the extent to which recent near-misses are a result of controllers being less-well-trained due to the Obama policy change. Cruz says that the BQ “reportedly awarded more points for applicants who scored lower in science and were unemployed during the previous three years. “The BQ has never been made public, but it also reportedly asked applicants about their favorite music and colors to learn more about an applicant’s background.” The Trump administration ended use of the biographical assessment in 2018 after more than 2,000 FAA ATC applicants successfully sued the FAA after their test scores were invalidated after not having participated in the questionnaire. But Cruz’s letter suggests that significant damage to the employee pipeline may have already been done. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) continues to blame flight delays and ‘near collisions’ on ATC staffing shortages. In March, it was forced to issue a “safety alert” after multiple near-miss incidents on runways at major airports. Since April, Cruz has been urging Treasury Secretary Pete Buttigieg for answers regarding the FAA’s inability to tackle congestion and air traffic controller shortages. Under Buttigieg, the department seems to have prioritized woke policies over its core mission. The secretary appointed 24 diversity advisers, installed a senior labor adviser to give unions direct access to the FAA administrator, and perhaps most notably worked to change the ‘Notice to Airmen’ (NOTAM) notification designation to ‘Notice to Air Missions’ instead of making much-needed changes to the outdated system itself. Related: Government Accountability Office: 2023-10-02 Pentagon misses deadline for barracks privatization report amid serious health problems Government Accountability Office: 2023-09-21 U.S. troops describe living in military barracks as 'continuous misery' Government Accountability Office: 2023-09-05 House GOP investigates billions of COVID-19 relief stolen by Russia, China, and Nigeria- an estimated $280 billion was stolen from the intended recipients, at least half of which went to criminal actors Related: Diversity: 2023-11-11 Hamas Terrorist Attack Drove the Left's Growing Antisemitism Into the Open Diversity: 2023-11-09 People Notice Curious and Sudden Lack of Diversity in New Army Recruiting Ad Diversity: 2023-11-09 Why the Republican party keeps losing Posted by: Skidmark 2023-11-20 |
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