At the Sept. 15, 2026 House Appropriations THUD Subcommittee FAA oversight hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) asks FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford why air traffic controllers still haven't received the full 3.8% raise Congress funded in P.L. 119-86. Bedford reads the Sec. 548 language giving him "sole discretion" to withhold it.
Sep 15 FAA oversight hearing =>
>Womack: "I personally just don't, I can't wrap my head around time on station or whatever you call it, going down and overtime going higher." Bedford: "Those are the facts, sir."
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>Womack: "Help me understand why I can't wrap my head around that."
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>Bedford: "What? Sure."
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>Womack: "Is it management?"
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>Bedford: "Well, so it may be, but let's talk about that. If we're doing a bad job of managing the workforce, let's figure that out and fix it. So I'm not absolving management here... We absolutely may be the problem. But I'd like to work with our labor partners to figure that out."
If you live in Oklahoma's 4th District;
• Norman
• Lawton
• Ada
• Ardmore
• Duncan
• Chickasha or surrounding areas
Rep. Tom Cole is your congressman, and he chairs House Appropriations. Your message counts more than anyone's.
Contact him here: cole.house.gov/contact/email, or call (202) 225-6165.
Feel free to copy this =>
'Congressman Cole, I'm your constituent in [town]. You've called air traffic controllers "dedicated workers" and written that paying aviation workers "keeps the American people free from harm while flying." I agree. But the FY2026 funding law still withholds 2.8 percentage points of controllers' 3.8% raise under a "sole discretion" condition. Hiring 2,500 new controllers won't fix staffing if we can't keep the ones we have. Please work to release their full raise. Thank you.'
Not in his district? Please share so this reaches someone who is.
WTF Nick? In one sentence you say what it actually is, “sole discretion” of Bedford. Then you say negotiations are not conducted in public. This isn’t and has never been a negotiation. He decides how and when and we still don’t know months later what the F that is. What is the agreement on how we get this insultingly low pay raise that we are congressionally entitled to? This isn’t open contractual negotiations, there is no negotiating in good faith, no legal issues, tell the members that you represent what the agreement is! Immediately! This again is another soft ball pitch that you are failing miserably at. Completely dropping the ball every step along the way since you’ve got into office. Go on every media outlet and explain our side, not yours but ours, the thousands of members that make up this union. Nick Daniel’s, you will go down as the worst NATCA president in history. All of the national E board, you will go down as the worst E board in history. My message to all E board members. You can be the smartest, funniest, most handsome, most astute leaders your people have ever had but if you turn a blind eye to a tyrant who is making their lives miserable they will treat you with the same distain and derision as they treat that tyrant.
Today is a reminder that the National Airspace System does not have excess capacity, technically or operationally. When primary equipment fails and the backup is unavailable, the consequences immediately spread across facilities, airports, airlines and the country. Resilience requires reliable infrastructure, functional redundancy and enough experienced controllers to manage the disruption. Modernization cannot mean focusing on equipment while continuing to treat the human beings holding the system together as an afterthought.
Meanwhile NATCA is fucking silent