FAA 2023 Budget Features Focus on 'Climate Crisis' and 'Racial Equity'

The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Budget Estimates for the Fiscal Year 2023 include focuses on the “climate crisis” as well as “racial equity,” amid ongoing instances of travel chaos with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at the helm of the Department of Transportation (DOT).

U.S. fights were temporarily grounded early Wednesday morning after a Notice to Air Missions System outage. While the FAA said normal air traffic operations are “resuming gradually,” delays are piling up. As of 12:20 p.m ET, over 7,100 U.S.-related flights were experiencing delays as a result of the mass system failure.

The latest transportation failure comes on the heels of mass chaos around the holiday season, as thousands of flights were delayed or canceled day by day following a winter storm. Southwest Airlines, particularly, experienced what it described as operational challenges, spurring days of cancellations and delays. During that time, Secretary Buttigieg refused to take responsibility, instead telling the media that he simply does not run Southwest’s system. However, he asserted that the Department of Transportation “is using the full force of this department to make sure customers get taken care of.”

“I think leadership has some serious questions to answer. I know the CEO is pretty new, but we’ve got to look at why, over the last few years, they didn’t make the investments that could have helped prevent this,” he said of Southwest at the time.

Frustrations are mounting, however, following the news of Wednesday’s flight delays due to the mass system failure.

“Safety is always the top priority, but leaving millions of travelers stranded and delayed to their destinations is not okay. I expect @FAANews and @SecretaryPete to immediately provide a FULL briefing to Congress on what happened and how they will ensure it NEVER happens again,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said:

These continued travel failures have some looking into the budgetary priorities of both the Department of Transportation (DOT) as well as the FAA, which reveal a dedication to woke leftist causes.

An overview of the FAA’s FY 2023 budget, for example, makes clear that the agency prioritizes climate change and “equity.” 

It states [emphasis added]:

The FY 2023 budget request prioritizes safety as the foundation of everything the FAA does, while also helping the economy recover and rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic, rising to the climate challenge, implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and ensuring transportation is an engine for equity.

The word “equity” appears in the budget outline 37 times. 

“The FAA’s budget request for FY 2023 embodies the Administration’s priorities of mitigating climate change and increasing equity,” a conclusion of the budget submission reads, adding:

Advance Equity for Underserved Communities Through Airport Civil Rights Compliance: Funding is requested for additional personnel and contract support to bolster FAA’s enforcement of Federal equity rules and regulations. The Office of Civil Rights works to ensure that all beneficiaries of federally assisted transportation programs are offered equal opportunity for participation and are free from discrimination. Funding addresses the equity challenges identified for small businesses, person with disabilities, people of various ages, sexes, gender, and other backgrounds with a history of discrimination.

The budget submission also includes a focus on “environmental justice” as well as “climate change.”

More specifically, the budget “includes $96 million in targeted investments to address safety, equity, climate change, and other key priorities.” The budget submission also states that $113 million of requested funds is also wanted for “programs focused on mitigating the impact of aviation on climate change and air quality.”

Further, the budget submission asserts that “increased severe weather, wildfires, and rising sea levels” are “expected impacts of climate-change.”

Similarly, the DOT’s 2023 budget highlights also include a focus on “racial equity” as well as climate change. An executive summary provides a list of programs to address “climate change” specifically, which includes $1 billion for the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, $400 million for the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grants Program, $12.4 million for Alternative Fuels Research, and $100 million for the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Program.

Further social media posts reveal the FAA’s commitment to these leftist causes. One year ago, for example, the agency advertised its “Inclusive Language Summit.”

“The language we use in aerospace matters. We’ve begun to adopt gender-neutral and inclusive aviation terminology as part of our agency-wide initiative,” it announced last year:

During a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Buttigieg said he is not ruling out a domestic or foreign attack as the cause of the outage. 

“Again, what I would say is there’s no direct indication of any kind of external or nefarious activity. But we’re not yet prepared to rule that out,” he added.