Senators Resist Last-Minute Airspace Rule Mysteriously Dropped Into Defense Bill

Two senators are leading the charge to strike a widely criticized provision in the annual defense policy bill that they argue would roll back safety measures implemented after a fatal Washington, D.C. midair crash earlier in 2025.

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell are working to lobby their colleagues on nixing a provision in the forthcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would reverse certain air space rules implemented in response to the January aviation crash near Washington, D.C., which killed 67. Cruz and Cantwell argue the new rules would provide more leniency to military air traffic and provide loopholes to allow military aircraft to operate in D.C. airspace.

“We are here to bring attention to a provision in the that was air dropped in at the last moment, and that unwinds the actions taken by President Trump and Secretary Duffy to make the airspace around D.C. safer,” Cruz said at a Monday press conference. “Our colleagues on the Armed Services Committees are just plain wrong that their last-minute language will make things safer. It does the exact opposite.”

Cruz and Cantwell also point to the lack of a single member in either chamber of Congress claiming authorship of the new rules as evidence of its lack of merit.

“Somebody should stand up and say, we put it in. That’s what somebody should do. And then they can explain why they think we should all support it,” Cantwell told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday. “When the NTSB issues their report in January, we should hear what else they have to say. They’re still doing some refinement of their analysis, so we want to take that into consideration. But this is clearly why we need these rules, because the military isn’t following them.”