The Obama administration is seeking $15.8 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration in the budget it released on February 2, a package that contains funding to carry out recommendations of an agency-wide security review that followed the Chicago center fire in September. The proposed Fiscal Year 2016 budget is slightly less than the budget Congress enacted in the current fiscal year.

The FAA seeks $9.92 billion for its operations account in the fiscal year that begins in October, 2 percent more than the FY2015 enacted level. Most of the operations budget—$7.5 billion—would be for the Air Traffic Organization, which manages the nation’s ATC system. The agency seeks $2.86 billion in its facilities and equipment (F&E) account, 10 percent above the FY2015 enacted level. Grant obligations under the Airport Improvement Program (AIP), the third leg of the budget, are reduced by $450 million to $2.9 billion. The FAA proposes to focus federal grants under the program on “smaller commercial and general aviation airports” and to eliminate “guaranteed AIP entitlement funding” for large hub airports. A proposed increase of the Passenger Facility Charge limit from $4.50 to $8 would help large airports raise revenue.

Within the operations budget, the FAA seeks $8.8 million and 18 full-time equivalent positions “to implement facility and personnel security recommendations for critical operational facilities” in the aftermath of its security review. Administrator Michael Huerta ordered the 30-day review after a disgruntled contractor set fire to the Chicago air route traffic control center in Aurora, Ill., on September 26, disrupting FAA en route operations in the Midwest for more than two weeks.

The agency’s F&E account contains $845 million for capital investments related to the NextGen ATC modernization, an increase of $53 million above FY2015 enacted levels. Within the NextGen portfolio of programs, the FAA seeks $235 million for the Data Communications (DataComm) effort to deploy text-based communications between controllers and pilots in the terminal and en route domains. DataComm trials were ongoing last summer at Memphis International and Newark Liberty airports. The FAA plans to roll out controller-pilot text messaging this year at Houston’s Hobby and Bush Intercontinental and Salt Lake City International airports, which it has designated as DataComm “key” sites. Plans call for implementing text communications for pre-departure clearances at 57 airports by 2017.

The FAA is also seeking $9 million to upgrade the exchange of flight data between its en route automation system and other terminal and oceanic systems, a recommendation stemming from the security review. It has allocated $9.6 million to support research into unmanned aircraft systems technologies.