The Trump administration appears ready to pick a fight with Congress over funding to upgrade federal air communications systems after Friday’s ground stop.
Last Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop for about four hours. Officials have said a router became overwhelmed by a system upgrade that caused communication issues, and that they issued the ground stop out of an abundance of caution. About 1.5 million travelers were affected Friday alone, and flight disruptions continued throughout the weekend before the backlog was resolved.
Adam Cancryn, a CNN White House reporter, said on Sunday’s “CNN Newsroom With Fredricka Whitfield” that the ground stop has also teed up a fight between the Trump administration and Congress.
“Congress is supposed to be getting briefed tomorrow on that need and where it would go. But a big fight here, funding-wise, is brewing in the next couple of months before the end of the year here,” Cancryn said.
Following the ground stop, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the Biden administration for the outdated equipment. That’s despite the Biden administration approving more than $25 billion in funding under Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law to modernize airports.
The Trump administration approved about $12.5 billion in additional funding to upgrade FAA communication systems in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and reports indicate that the administration has not yet spent all of the allocated funding.
Duffy has also asked Congress to approve an additional $50 billion in funding for new communications tools, up from his previous ask of $30 billion.
Questions have also swirled about the timing of the communication system outage. Some air traffic controllers have previously told CNN they don’t believe the administration’s excuse that a system upgrade caused the outage, arguing that those updates are usually pushed out in the middle of the night rather than in the afternoon on a busy travel day.
The outage also occurred on the same day that the National Weather Service’s radar system was disrupted. Microsoft also experienced issues with its Office products the day before the ground stop. Trump administration officials have said they saw no evidence of nefarious activity.
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