Exposed: The Less Safe, More Expensive ‘Green’ Airport Towers Biden Stuck Us With

We have seen many recent air travel accidents.

Over the course of just a few weeks, there was a Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines commercial flight over the Potomac River, not to mention a smaller plane crash in Philadelphia and a Delta plane flipping upside down on a runway in Toronto.

Americans are starting to become nervous about air travel.

Many are pointing fingers at the recent emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion from major airlines and the federal government as one factor decreasing safety in the sector.

In that same vein, as the new Trump administration grapples with the safety challenges facing commercial air travel, a new analysis from The Washington Times revealed that the Biden administration tried to work green technology into core air traffic control systems.

Rather than building remote towers, which are cameras mounted on tall structures and are common in Europe, the Biden administration opted to invest in conventional air traffic control towers, a less safe and more expensive model.

They also earmarked a whopping $500 million for the design and construction of as many as 31 “sustainable” towers at smaller municipal airports across the country.

“These new air traffic control towers will mean that smaller airports can handle more flights, more sustainably and more affordably,” now-former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced in the spring of 2023, according to the Times.

“I look forward to seeing this design go from the drawing board to construction sites across the country, helping our nation’s airports support more travelers, grow their local economies and prepare for the future of low-carbon aviation,” he added.

Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, a firm based in Manhattan, won the design contract.

The company says on its website that it is known for “building ecological, equitable, and joyous communities.”

Executives laid out an ambitious plan for structures that were all-electric and made of “renewable mass timber” and recycled steel, as well as being equipped with geothermal heating and cooling, not to mention other renewable energy features.

The FAA told firms seeking the lucrative contract “to think outside the box, using your innovation and creativity to turn exciting ideas into our new reality,” per the Times.

That seems to be exactly what Practice for Architecture and Urbanism accomplished.

But was that the right decision?

Our nation has been thinking “outside the box” in a number of ways, especially socially and politically, yet the result has not always been stellar.

The environmental movement, the diversity movement, and the social justice movement all claim to create an “outside the box” sort of utopia, but instead, they have undermined the foundations of our society, making us realize that perhaps things were not so bad after all back inside the four walls of said box.

As applied to aviation, that involved hiring people based on merit, not on the color of their skin, or building structures for safety, rather than based on the carbon emissions of their operations.

Perhaps it is indeed time to think a bit more “inside the box.”

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