The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday to meet with Michael Huerta, the Obama administration’s nominee to head the FAA.
Huerta is now Acting FAA Administrator. He has served in that role since last December, when former FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt resigned after he was charged with drunken driving. Babbitt was found not guilty and has returned to the private sector as an aviation consultant.
Huerta served in the Department of Transportation under President Clinton, and also worked with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney on the 2002 Olympic Games in Utah.
He has been nominated to finish out his current five-year term and receive another five-year term as FAA head after that. Senators are expected to grill Huerta on the progress of the FAA’s multi-billion-dollar NextGen air traffic modernization program, now expected to cost far more than originally projected.
