The House voted down the ROTOR Act on Tuesday, 264 to 133, killing a Senate-passed aviation safety bill that drew fierce opposition from Pentagon officials, House Republican leaders, and a former FAA administrator over national security concerns and what critics called a rushed, incomplete approach to reform.

The Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform Act needed a two-thirds majority under the fast-track procedure used to bring it to the floor. It didn't come close.

The bill, pushed through the Senate in December by Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, was drafted in response to the January 2025 midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet near Reagan Washington National Airport. That crash killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft. Investigators found that ADS-B, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, had been turned off on the Army helicopter at the time of the collision.

The ROTOR Act would have required most planes to install and use ADS-B technology. It would also have required military aircraft to have the system turned on during routine training flights, though not during sensitive missions.

That distinction was not enough to satisfy the Pentagon, House Armed Services leadership, or defense officials who saw the bill as an unacceptable intrusion into military operational security.

The national security problem

House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers called the ROTOR Act "a flawed response to last year's tragic mid-air collision." His objection was specific and serious: the bill would require military airmen and highly classified assets "to regularly broadcast their location."

According to the Hill, since 2018, certain military aircraft have been exempted from broadcasting their positions under a memorandum of agreement between the FAA and the Pentagon. The ROTOR Act would have overruled that deal, handing the FAA authority over military flight equipment decisions. Rogers laid out the stakes plainly on the House floor Monday:

The FAA, not the Pentagon or our military commanders, will have the final say on which military aircraft must be equipped with ADS-B and when it must be turned on. That's unacceptable.

He followed that with a point that needs no editorial embellishment:

For obvious reasons, we do not want our enemies to know where our bombers or fighters are or where they are headed.

The Pentagon itself weighed in on Monday, declaring that the legislation in its current form could create "significant unresolved budgetary burdens and operational security risks affecting national defense activities." A defense official told The Hill that the bill leaves out "crucial, mutually-discussed provisions."

What makes the Pentagon's opposition notable is its timing. The Defense Department had earlier endorsed the ROTOR Act after it passed in the Senate. Something changed between December and now. The most straightforward reading: once the details of implementation became clear, the Pentagon realized the bill created problems it couldn't live with.

Two recommendations out of fifty

National security wasn't the only problem. House Transportation Chair Sam Graves argued that the bill was substantively inadequate, pointing to the NTSB's still-incomplete investigation into the crash. He introduced his own bipartisan legislation last week, the ALERT Act, which he said takes a broader approach. On the House floor Monday, Graves drew a sharp contrast:

The ALERT Act tackles all of the identified root causes that led to this deadly crash. Unfortunately, the [ROTOR] act . . . touches on only two of the NTSB's 50 recommendations and provides an overly prescriptive approach to mandating a specific technology, which is still largely under development.

Two out of fifty. The ROTOR Act was enacted as the legislative response to a national tragedy and addressed 4% of the NTSB's recommendations while mandating technology that Graves described as still largely under development.

Former acting FAA administrator Daniel Elwell raised his own concerns with House leadership in a letter this week. His framing was diplomatic but pointed:

This is not about opposing reform. It is about ensuring reform is done correctly.

Good intentions aren't good enough

There is a familiar pattern in Washington where tragedy creates political pressure to pass something, anything, quickly. The impulse is understandable. Sixty-seven people are dead. The public wants answers and accountability. Elected officials want to show they acted.

But acting fast and acting well are not the same thing. A bill that addresses two of fifty safety recommendations, mandates technology still under development, and strips the Pentagon of authority over its own aircraft positioning is not serious reform. It is a press release with a vote attached.

Neither Graves nor Rogers reportedly planned to whip against the bill, which suggests the opposition was organic. Members looked at the legislation, heard the Pentagon's concerns, weighed the national security implications, and voted no. That is the system working.

The NTSB investigation into the January crash is not yet complete. Graves's ALERT Act is on the table. There is time to get this right, and every reason to insist on it. The 67 people who died near Reagan National deserve a legislative response that matches the scale of what went wrong, not one that checks two boxes and calls it reform.

Speed is not seriousness. Comprehensiveness is.