Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, is demanding answers from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about what he says is the agency’s inadequate fine of The Boeing Company for “hundreds” of quality-control violations.

Blumenthal, in a Tuesday letter to FAA Administration Bryan Bedford, called the FAA’s proposed $3.1 million fine “little more than a rounding error for Boeing” given that the company generated nearly $39 billion in revenue over the two quarters in which the violations allegedly occurred.

“For Boeing, such fines are easily absorbed as the cost of doing business, not a meaningful deterrent to dangerous behavior. Unless penalties rise to the level that forces the company to invest in real safety re

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