House Republicans scrap Ted Cruz’s aviation safety bill to prevent next Potomac crash – Jalopnik

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a bill 264 to 133. This obviously means that it failed somehow. The bill was the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform (ROTOR, get it?) Act, a series of flight rules changes proposed in response to the horrific crash of an Army Black Hawk helicopter on American Airlines Flight 5342 over the Potomac River in January 2025. Championed by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ranking Member Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the ROTOR Act became passed unanimously by the Senate. December. It appeared to move quickly to pass the House of Representatives and then be signed by President Donald Trump. Ironically, it has now crashed.

You may be thinking to yourself that you can count and confirm that 264 is in fact a higher number than 133, so the bill should have passed, right? If only democracy were that simple! Because of the strange, secretive ways of Congress, the ROTOR Act was submitted to Parliament through an accelerated procedureThe disadvantage of this is that this method requires a two-thirds majority for approval. If you do the math here, you’ll realize that it was An If one representative had voted the other way, this would be over. That’s the line between doing something about the crash and doing nothing at all.

What happened? I don’t want to put too much emphasis on it, but the Pentagon shot it down. Monday brought one statement claiming that the ROTOR Act (which was passed by the Senate back in December, remember) was flawed. That seems to have pulled away a lot of support, including none other than House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA); in particular, it literally pulled away just enough. If that sounds coordinated, that’s certainly your judgment.

Underlying all of this is the clear fact that the Pentagon does not now want and has never wanted to participate in these reforms. Cruz got into a heated political confrontation with the military after the 2025 crash, with the former demanding information that the latter flatly refused to hand over (before eventually relenting). Then in December, someone inserted a provision into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the bill that funds the military, that specifically gives it an exception to some reforms. Cruz was furious, but ultimately allowed it on the condition that the ROTOR Act, which would replace the provision, be passed quickly. Now ROTOR is stuck. Chance?

Well, apparently that number isn’t zero. In contrast, the competing ALERT Act provides no such mandates and, in fact, appears to be a very superficial reform. Homendy said bluntly that it is not implementing the NTSB’s recommendations. You could argue that it’s a symbolic bill designed to give the impression that Congress is doing something while still allowing the military to continue to do whatever it wants. Again, your judgment.

In the meantime, NPR Cruz quotes Cruz insisting that this is all a “temporary delay” and that the ROTOR Act will eventually “become the law of the land.” Even if it does, the whole ordeal shows how difficult it is to pass meaningful legislation even in the face of catastrophe. If a passenger plane hitting an army helicopter doesn’t move the needle, what will?