BISMARCK – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) joined a bipartisan letter led by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) urging them to fully implement two aviation workforce grant programs authorized in the 2018 FAA Reauthorization bill that invest in and expand the development of the next generation of aircraft pilots and maintenance technicians.
“The grant program for pilot education will support the creation and delivery of curriculum designed to provide high school students with meaningful science, technology, engineering, math and aviation education,” wrote the senators. “This program has the potential to grow our nation’s pilot workforce by encouraging our nation’s youth to become the next generation of commercial, general aviation, drone or military pilots. The grant program for aviation technicians will address the well-documented maintenance industry skills gap by encouraging and facilitating collaboration between schools, government, labor and industry to recruit and train the technical talent America’s aerospace sector will require to keep the nation’s aircraft operating safely and efficiently.”
Senators Cramer, Van Hollen, and Inhofe were joined on the letter by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), John Boozman (R-AR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), John Hoeven (R-ND), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Angus King (I-ME), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ed Markey (D-MA), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), John Thune (R-SD), Tom Udall (D-NM), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
Click here to read the letter.