The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee is pushing to stick with a major Federal Aviation Administration telecommunications program, which has been criticized for being behind schedule, not fulfilling expectations and raising safety concerns.

Meanwhile, the vendor operating the older telecom system, Verizon Business, is lobbying lawmakers to cancel the program.

The House Appropriations Committee recently approved the $28 million that the Bush administration had requested for the program. Before the vote, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the subcommittee’s chairman, wrote identical letters in support of the new program to the leaders of the Appropriations Committee and the committee’s Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, and District of Columbia Subcommittee.

An April FAA inspector general report recommended that the agency reconsider pursuing the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) program. The IG has launched a second audit to evaluate the FAA’s progress in drafting a new program schedule, crafting a cost/benefit analysis and building a transition plan. The audit will also study whether FTI interferes with air travel safety.

“I understand that there may be efforts in the full committee to delay or create barriers to complete implementation of the FTI program,” Mica wrote in a letter to colleagues. “I strongly urge you to resist such efforts and allow this important program to realize its full benefits to the flying public and to the nation's taxpayers.”

In the end, no one offered such an amendment.

FTI’s purpose is to reduce operating costs by consolidating multiple telecom networks into one operated by Harris.

But the April IG report stated that the program, which has been designated high-risk, will likely miss its December 2007 deadline and fail to deliver the projected $102 million in savings for fiscal 2006 unless FAA managers accelerate the transition to the new system almost tenfold.

The FAA awarded the contract to Harris in July 2002. The agency is still paying MCI, now known as Verizon Business, to use an older system while Harris builds and installs the new one.

A Mica staff member said Verizon has been lobbying on Capitol Hill to stop FTI, but after talking to all the stakeholders, Mica felt the program should proceed.