S.Amdt. 759

SA 759. Mr. THUNE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill S. 1790, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2020 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle D of title III, add the following:

SEC. 342. REPORT ON NATIONAL AIRSPACE OF UNITED STATES.

(a) In General.--Not later than 270 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Director of Training and
Readiness of the Air Force, in consultation with the
Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration and the
heads of such other Federal agencies as the Secretary of
Defense considers appropriate, shall submit to the
congressional defense committees a report on the national
airspace of the United States.
(b) Elements.--The report required by subsection (a) shall
include the following:
(1) An assessment of the strategic importance of the
national airspace of the United States.
(2) An assessment of whether the current airspace system is
sufficient to ensure components of the Department of Defense
have sufficient access to airspace to meet worldwide
operational, training, exercise, test, and evaluation
requirements for peacetime, contingency, and wartime
operations, including an assessment of the following:
(A) Whether current civil and military cooperation
mechanisms are providing for the effective and efficient
management of the national airspace for purposes of training
members of the Armed Forces.

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(B) Whether current civil and military cooperation
mechanisms provide sufficient notice to permit the planning
of large force exercises, including any necessary waivers for
altitudes, short notice testing requirements, and other
purposes.
(C) Whether temporary or permanent realignment of the
jurisdictional boundaries of air route traffic control
centers of the Federal Aviation Administration would improve
current civil and military cooperation mechanisms for
conducting large force exercises.
(D) Whether the current airspace system is sufficient to
meet the training needs of aviators in the Armed Forces to
meet high-end threats, including 5th generation aircraft,
unmanned aerial vehicles, and hypersonic weapons.
(E) Whether current civil and military cooperation
mechanisms can sufficiently address the need to replicate
contested combat airspace, denied access combat airspace, and
airspace without use of Global Positioning System for
training of members of the Armed Forces.
(F) Whether current civil and military cooperation
mechanisms provide sufficient notice to commercial and
general aviation regarding exercises and special use waivers.
(3) An audit of the national airspace, including an audit
of the following:
(A) Special use airspaces.
(B) Military operations areas.
(C) Temporary military operations areas.
(D) Commercial flight routes.
(E) Instrument routes.
(F) Visual routes.
(G) Unfulfilled user requirements.
(H) Whether underutilized airspaces can be returned to the
national airspace system to enhance commercial route
efficiencies in high-traffic areas in exchange for expanded
training for the Armed Forces in low-traffic areas.
(I) Proposed options and solutions to overcome challenges
identified in paragraph (2), including identifying whether--
(i) a solution or solutions can be incorporated within the
existing memorandum of understanding between the Federal
Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense with
respect to the national airspace; or
(ii) changes to current law are required.
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