Sen. John Hickenlooper supports DIA CEO Phil Washington as next FAA Administrator
U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper, a Democrat representing Colorado, advocated for Denver International Airport Phil Washington on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Washington is being considered as the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA has been without a permanent administrator for a year and the past 12 months have been filled with aviation crises.
If confirmed by the Senate, Washington would take over an agency dealing with safety concerns including several recent close calls between planes, understaffing that has contributed to flight delays, and the breakdown of a pilot-alert system that briefly stopped flights nationwide in January.
In Wednesday's hearing, Hickenlooper touted Washington's work with public transportation in Colorado as well as his work at DIA.
"When he led Denver's RTD, by far the region's largest agency in the state, he put our city's transit system back on track," said Hickenlooper.
Washington told the Senate Commerce Committee that safety will be his top priority, and he will "leave the FAA better than I found it."
"He takes on the big, complex problems and gets results," said Hickenlooper. "He's not an airline industry insider using this position as a revolving door for the industry to police itself."
Republicans, however, seized on Washington's short time in the aviation field. They noted that he is not a pilot, in contrast to some of his recent predecessors and the current acting administrator, Billy Nolen.
"He does not have any experience in aviation safety," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. "This quite simply is a position he is not qualified for."
Cruz discounted Washington's job running the Denver airport, telling the nominee, "You are in charge of coffee shops, clothing stores and newsstands," but not pilots, aircraft mechanics or air traffic controllers.
Washington has been CEO of DIA since 2021. Before that, he was CEO of Los Angeles County bus and rail transit authority, Metro, for six years.
Biden originally nominated Washington in early July 2022, but he failed to get a hearing even though Democrats controlled the Senate. The president re-nominated him in January — choosing the man who led Biden's transition team for the Transportation Department, the FAA's parent agency, after the 2020 election.
