Flight Global
Jon Hemmerdinger
04 July 2025
The US Congress has passed a sweeping spending and tax bill that will provide $12.5 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fund air traffic control (ATC) modernisation, one of President Donald Trump’s central policy priorities.
The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” is being hailed by aviation and aerospace groups and now heads to Trump’s desk for a signature.
It also brings forward an expiration date for tax credits tied to production of so-called “clean” hydrogen. That credit had been viewed as helping push aerospace toward lower-carbon fuels.
Specifically, the bill provides:
- $4.75 billion for “telecommunications infrastructure”
- $3 billion for radar replacements
- $1.9 billion for a “new air route traffic control centre”
- $1 billion for terminal radar approach control facilities
- $500 million for runway safety technologies, including airport surface surveillance systems
- $350 million for “unstaffed infrastructure”
- $300 million for information display systems
- $300 million for performance-based navigation, data communication and aeronautical information
- $100 million for controller training technologies
- $100 million for consolidating Air Route Traffic Control Centres
- $80 million for automated weather observing systems
- $50 million for “advanced aviation technologies”, including related to the emerging air taxi sector
- $50 million for “remote” towers
- $40 million to improve aviation safety in Alaska and US territories
