From the opening statement of Jane F. Garvey: "Thank you once again for the opportunity to appear before you this morning to discuss the President's budget request for Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] for 2001. First of all, just the put it in a little bit of context, the FAA is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week service delivery organization. We safely manage approximately 200,000 take-offs and landings every day in a system that moves over 600 million airline passengers per year, and we expect that number to reach one billion within a decade. We anticipate 30 billion cargo ton miles of high priority shipped cargo this year, which represents an 88 percent increase since 1990. In the context of that dramatic growth in the industry, the President's budget provides the resources for us to continue the modernization of the national airspace system, or the NAS. Modernization of the NAS is a two-pronged effort. First of all, it is sustaining the infrastructure, those thousands of pieces of equipment that are out there, and, secondly, deploying the new technologies to improve the safety, to improve the efficiency of the airspace. But, again, we need to do this within the context of a 24- hour-a-day operation. The FAA has over 14,500 facilities and buildings. Many of our buildings are beyond their economic service life of 30 to 40 years, and these facilities are critical to support the technological advances we are bringing online. Just by way of example, the average age of an airport air traffic control tower is 26 years. Specifically at some of our Nation's busiest airports: the control tower at New York LaGuardia's Airport, for example, was commissioned in 1964; Washington's Dulles, commissioned in 1962; and Newark International Airport, commissioned in 1960. Clearly, there is a need for resources if the FAA is going to be able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, but the issue is not simply a matter of more money. It is also whether the FAA will have a steady and reliable source of funding for the investments required to ensure that the traveling public has a safe and reliable air transportation system." Statements, letters, and materials submitted for the record include those of the following: Donald J. Carty, Joe Del Balzo, Jeffrey P. Fegan, Jane F. Garvey, Duane Woerth, Jerry F. Costello, John E. Sweeney and James E. Goodwin.