Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday called on Congress to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes $12.5 billion for a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s ATC infrastructure.
Speaking to reporters after a tour of San Diego International Airport’s (KSAN) ATC tower, Duffy called the aviation-related provisions in the spending proposal “long overdue.”
“The One Big Beautiful Bill is the down payment America needs for a brand-new air traffic control system,” he said. “While we’ll need additional funding to get the job done, the choice before Congress is clear – pass the OBBB and let USDOT get to work or vote no and leave USDOT with zero dollars to begin replacing our aging system. I urge Congress to deliver on President Donald Trump’s promise to the American people to get America building again.”
While Duffy commended the air traffic controllers he met in San Diego, he said the tower he toured had the same problems as many other ATC facilities across the country – “old” and “broken” equipment dating from “the 1960s and 1970s” that controllers either can’t use or have to work around.
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“We’re in Southern California, so you deal with the Sun,” he said. “They actually have shades in the tower that they should be able to deploy electronically, they don’t work, and they had to actually jimmy-rig the shades on strings so they can deal with the hot days in Southern California and [the Sun] shining in their faces as they’re trying to control traffic.”
‘The One Pathway We Have’
Duffy has called for a dramatic reconstruction of the nation’s ATC network, a mission given added weight by the collision of a commercial jet and a military helicopter over Washington, D.C., in January and outages at Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) in April and May that triggered hundreds of flight cancellations and delays.
A plan released last month calls for the construction of six new ATC centers and 15 new towers, as well as the replacement of most ATC equipment and the installation of fiber-optic cables at and between facilities.
Earlier this month, the Transportation Department began soliciting information from companies that might be interested in serving as a general contractor. Trump has said he would prefer to hand the job to one corporation, such as Raytheon or IBM, which would then manage every piece of the overhaul.
The White House has never disclosed how much the project will cost in total, and Duffy emphasized Thursday that the $12.5 billion will only get the Transportation Department part of the way to its goal.
“The Big Beautiful Bill is the one pathway we have right now that’s going to start the funding, start the process, start the building, start the fixing of this old, antiquated system,” he said. “Now, that’s not going to be enough, we’re going to need a lot more money, but this is the one vehicle we have to start the build right now.”
