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WASHINGTON — President Biden’s nominee to guide the Federal Aviation Administration, Phillip A. Washington, has withdrawn from consideration for the job, in response to the White Home.
Mr. Washington’s Republican critics within the Senate had argued that he lacked adequate aviation expertise, and so they raised questions on his connection to a corruption investigation in Los Angeles.
His withdrawal got here shortly after the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation stated it will delay its vote on Mr. Washington’s nomination, which had been scheduled for Wednesday.
Abdullah Hasan, a spokesman for the White Home, stated that Mr. Washington had the appropriate {qualifications} and expertise to run the F.A.A.
“Sadly, an onslaught of unfounded Republican assaults on Mr. Washington’s service and expertise irresponsibly delayed this course of, threatened pointless procedural hurdles on the Senate ground, and in the end have led him to withdraw his nomination at present,” Mr. Hasan stated in a press release to The New York Occasions.
Although Mr. Washington, a 24-year Military veteran, has been the chief government of Denver Worldwide Airport since 2021, a lot of his profession concerned floor transport: main Denver’s Regional Transportation District and later the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
He has been linked to a Los Angeles public corruption investigation involving no-bid contracts awarded by the transit system to a nonprofit working a sexual harassment hotline. Final 12 months, the California lawyer basic’s workplace took over the investigation from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division. Mr. Washington has denied any wrongdoing within the matter.
Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary, had introduced Mr. Washington’s withdrawal on Twitter late Saturday, a couple of hours earlier than the White Home launched its assertion to The Occasions.
“The FAA wants a confirmed Administrator, and Phil Washington’s transportation and navy expertise made him a superb nominee,” Mr. Buttigieg tweeted Saturday night. “The partisan assaults and procedural obstruction he has confronted are undeserved, however I respect his choice to withdraw and am grateful for his service.”
The F.A.A. has been with out everlasting management since Stephen Dickson, a former Delta Air Strains government tapped by President Donald J. Trump in 2019, stepped down practically a 12 months in the past.
Billy Nolen, the company’s prime security official, has been in cost since Mr. Dickson’s departure.
In latest months, the company has handled various challenges, together with a collection of close to collisions at airports across the nation and a system outage in January that brought on widespread disruptions.
Mr. Washington, 65, would have been the primary Black particular person confirmed as F.A.A. administrator. President Biden nominated him to the put up in July 2022, however he didn’t obtain a listening to within the final Congress. The president resubmitted the nomination in January.
In a listening to earlier this month, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the highest Republican on the Commerce Committee, argued that Mr. Washington was merely not certified for the place. Citing the aviation backgrounds of earlier F.A.A. leaders, he peppered Mr. Washington with technical questions associated to the Boeing 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
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