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- Sen. Kyrsten Sinema made a last-minute push in June to change training requirements for pilots.
- At the same time, she received over $100,000 from the airline industry over the last three months.
- The industry has become a larger source of money for the senator's campaign in recent years.
In June, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona began a last-minute push to change the training requirements for airline pilots by establishing a new training program that critics argue could reduce safety in the industry.
The Democrat-turned-independent, along with Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, proposed an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act targeting the so-called "1500-hour rule" for airline pilots.
The Air Line Pilots Association, arguing the rule has reduced the number of airplane crashes since it was instituted in 2010, said that the amendment could result in some pilots flying with as few as 500 hours of training, though it is not mandated by Sinema's provision.
The introduction of the amendment prompted the Senate Commerce Committee to postpone a vote on the bill — and elicited anger from one of Sinema's Democratic colleagues, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.
"Now is not the time to put corporate profits ahead of the lives of our constituents who may want to board a commercial flight in the future," Duckworth said on the Senate floor that day. "A vote to reduce the 1500-hour rule for pilot training will mean blood on your hands when the inevitable accident occurs as a result of an inadequately trained flight crew."
But for the airline industry that's been pushing for that reduction, it was a sign that they had Sinema's ear.
It's not hard to see why.
Political action committees and airline executives gave over $100,000 to Sinema's campaign from April to June, according to recently-filed documents with the Federal Election Commission.
That sum includes $24,600 from PACs — including $5,000 from Delta Airlines', $4,500 for Southwest Airlines and $3000 from Alaska Air Group — and $77,700 from self-identified employees of the industry, the vast majority of which listed themselves as executives.
Altogether, the money accounts for over a tenth of contributions to Sinema's main campaign account over the last 3 months.
And before this past quarter, airline PACs and executives had contributed $150,000 to Sinema's campaign over the last two years, as reported by The Intercept in June — indicating a significant uptick in contributions from the industry as a potentially blistering re-election campaign looms ahead.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Sinema's Senate office defended the amendment, saying it was not the result of industry lobbying, but from experts and the recommendations of a committee at the Federal Aviation Administration. Additionally, the spokesperson noted, a similar amendment to the underlying bill cleared a House committee.
"This broadly supported bipartisan amendment empowers the FAA to determine the safest way to train pilots and continues Kyrsten's laser focus on increasing aviation safety," the spokesperson said.
The second-quarter fundraising figures, verified by Insider, were initially provided by Replace Sinema PAC, a group seeking to prevent the independent senator's re-election that's supporting Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego's Senate campaign.
"Kyrsten Sinema has shown that the only people she sticks her neck out for are her corporate donors, from preserving Wall Street tax loopholes to putting airline industry profits over passenger safety, in order to get thousands in donations," said Sacha Haworth, a spokesperson for the PAC. "It's no wonder her own colleague says she'll have blood on her hands if her proposal passes."
Correction: July 18, 2023 — An earlier version of this article stated that Sinema's amendment would loosen pilot training requirements. It has been updated to reflect that the amendment proposes a new training program that critics argue would do so.