Author: Brian Wilson

Old Glory — thirteen stripes representing the original colonies. On the field of blue — 50 stars representing the 50 states. But could that flag one day soon have 51 stars?

I’m not talking about statehood for the District of Columbia. Most residents of D.C. desperately want to be an independent state, but recent moves to make that happen imploded in Congress before even coming to a vote. No – I’m talking about Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that belongs to, but is not a part of, the United States.

Right now, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, though most don’t pay income taxes. They do not vote in presidential elections and the resident commissioner who represents them in congress cannot vote. Residents of the island nation have long been split on the issue of statehood.

So, it was surprising this week when Congress debated and passed a measure that would allow Puerto Ricans to vote on whether they want to change their relationship with the U.S. If they vote yes — there would be a second vote to decide if they want to:

A.) Become a state.

B.) Become an independent nation.  

C.) Seek some other type of political association between sovereign nations.

One of the people pushing this move is the current Republican governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuno.

“I’m convinced that the framers of the Constitution, the founding fathers, never intended for this relationship to last 112 years,” Fortuno told Fox News during the congressional debate.

One member who voted against the measure thinks Congress is going about this all wrong. Washington State Republican. Rep. Doc Hastings, believes the House is “blessing a process by which we are asking them if they want to become a state.” Hastings continued, “to me that’s backwards.”

The weird thing about the House vote is that members were not whipped along party lines. Some democrats voted for it … others against. House Minority Leader John Boehner,R-Ohio, voted against it, but two members of the Republican leadership — Eric Cantor or Virginia and Mike Pence of Ohio — voted for it.

Nothing about this seems imminent or likely. The bill probably won’t even clear the Senate. Even if it did … and even if Puerto Ricans decided that they wanted full-state status, there would be many in Congress who would oppose statehood.

And there is this — if Puerto Rico were to become a state, how could we as Americans ever deal with the jealous outrage certain to erupt in the Northern Mariana Islands?

If you have ever been held captive on plane that is going nowhere for the foreseeable future, you know how helpless and frustrated it feels to be trapped in a metal tube with screaming kids, overflowing toilets — and no food or drink. Good news. Starting today, if you find yourself in that situation, you have rights.

If your plane pulls back from the gate and sits on the tarmac for two hours, the airline must give you access to food, water and the plane’s bathroom. Before three hours have passed, they have to take you back to the gate. Believe me, when I say the airlines will take this seriously. They can be fined $27,500 per passenger. If the plane is full, that could add up to somewhere in the neighborhood of a $3 million dollar fine.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood acknowledges that the airlines don’t much like the new rule. LaHood told me earlier this week, “What I’ve said to airline CEOs … is: ‘you should be for the passengers and that’s a good reason to be for this rule.’”

Some industry analysts believe there could be a downside to all this. Since some flights don’t make a lot of profit, the airline may choose to cancel a flight if there is even a small chance the plane might be held on the tarmac because of weather or air traffic congestion.

“I am confident that we will see a fairly large number of cancellations through the summer, just to avoid the penalty this rule could impose, ” said William Swelbar, a research engineer from MIT’s International Center for Air Transportation.

In 2009, there were 903 flights that were held on the ground for more than three hours. Already in the first two months of 2010, airlines were on pace for a worse record.

Some credit for this new rule must be given to the small grassroots group, flyersrights.org. After getting stuck on a plane in Austin, Texas for more than 9 hours in 2006, Kate Hanni founded the group and began lobbying for a Passenger’s Bill of Rights. She points out that airlines over-schedule the number of flights that can reasonably be expected to take off from an airport — sometimes by as much as 30 percent. She says that means “a certain number of flights … are gonna sit in the penalty box.”

By the way, I am reporting from JFK airport today in New York, where runway work is expected to create mayhem for travelers during the busy summer travel season. Please take note.

“Internet to show me where. GPS to get me there.

Everywhere there’s satellites. Oh, I live the simple life.”

— lyrics from A Simple Life

When a song by country/bluegrass singer, Ricky Skaggs includes a reference to GPS, it seems pretty clear that this amazing satellite technology, developed initially for the military, has become a part of our every day lives.

GPS technology has been in cars for years — now most advanced cell phones are GPS capable, but you might be surprised to know that the nation’s air traffic control system is only now starting to use GPS in a sophisticated way.

Later today, I will board a plane at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City, New Jersey to witness first hand new technology that will revolutionize aviation — making the skies safer — while making travel more efficient and less time consuming. It should save airlines fuel over time, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of large commercial jets.

The FAA calls this ADS-B (that stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast). It’s the underlying core technology of the FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System. Once tested, the air traffic controller will be able to reduce aircraft separation from five miles to three. Planes equipped with ADS-B technology will be able to know their location within three meters — and, perhaps more importantly, see exactly where other planes are. I wonder if the ADS-B systems has one of those pleasant female voices like the GPS system in my car? I call her Maggie.

Ground systems should be installed around the country by 2013 and the FAA is proposing that all airplanes be equipped with ADS-B avionics by 2020. Some airlines have already started installing the gear. According to FAA administrator, Randy Babbitt, this new technology “is a tremendous leap forward in transforming the current air traffic control system.”

It’s already up and running in Philadelphia, which sits smack dab in the middle of some of the most congested airspace in the country.

This plane I’ll be flying on is the FAA’s ADS-B testbed . I’m told it is equipped with a mock cockpit and video screens. Being the techno-geek I am, I’m certain I’ll be all agog by the time I land. It doesn’t take much to make me all agog, however.

Be sure to watch for my reports Wednesday afternoon on Fox News Channel.  Also check back to this blog for updates!

Irv Miller was a Toyota public affairs vice president — a thirty-year veteran of the company who was just a few days short of retirement — when he wrote an email to Japanese counterparts on January 16th of this year. It is a document that seems certain to reverberate through hearing rooms and courtrooms around the country.

“I hate to break this to you,” Miller wrote – occasionally using all capitals for emphasis, “but WE HAVE A tendency for MECHANICAL failure in accelerator pedals for a certain manufacturer on certain models. We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet. The time to hide on this one is over. We need to come clean … “

Noting that key Toyota executives were about to meet with officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Miller added:

“We better just hope that they can get NHTSA to work with us in coming [up] with a workable solution that does not put us out of business.”

The email response suggests the matter was discussed by several Japanese executives. A decision was made to not discuss the pedal issue because it “might raise another uneasiness of customers.”

That email is among 7,000 documents Toyota has handed over to government officials. It may explain why NHTSA has just slapped the Japanese automaker with a $16.4 Million dollar fine for not bringing safety concerns to government officials in a timely fashion. Toyota dealerships in 31 European countries were notified of pedal problems in the fall of 2009 … months before the US recall began.

While some will paint this as evidence of wrongdoing, crisis management expert, Eric Dezenhall, believes it is typical of what often happens inside a big corporation during times of trouble. Not a cover up, but corporate-wide denial that feeds a bunker mentality.

“People are hysterical they are hiding they are hoping it would blow over they hope somebody else would handle it. I have yet to see a corporation crisis where the company behaves the way they would in a Hollywood portrayal of it.”

The document could cause big problems in the courtroom where Toyota is facing class-action and product liability lawsuits. Fox News contacted Irv Miller by phone. He politely declined further comment on whether he expects to be subpoenaed to testify in hill hearings — or in a court of law.

Today most people wouldn’t think of driving across town with an infant in their arms. Infant car seats not only make sense; they are the law. Yet everyday in this country parents fly across the country holding infants in their laps. It doesn’t make any sense to airline safety expert, David Evans, “… You’ve got this small infant in a mother or father’s arms and it’s the only thing in the airplane that’s unrestrained.”

The concern? Infants are vulnerable in the unlikely event of a crash. The greater threat – that the child might be thrown about the cabin of the aircraft during moments of unpredictable and unexpected turbulence

The National Transportation Safety Board has been asking the FAA to implement an airline infant seat requirement for years, to no avail. Fox News contacted the FAA to ask why there is no airline infant seat requirement and received the following statement from FAA spokesman Les Dorr:

“We encourage — but do not mandate — the use of child safety devices on airplanes because of the increased safety risk to families who, if forced to purchase an extra airline ticket, might choose to drive. The risk is significantly greater in automobiles than in airplanes…”

It is true that using an infant child seat does require that parents purchase another seat, but as Deborah Hersman, the chairman of the NTSB – and a mother of three – told Fox News, “Every state in the country has requirements about buckling your child in an age and size-appropriate seat in automobiles. It’s no different in an aircraft situation. You must restrain them properly if you want them to have a good chance of survival if there’s an accident.”