Stranger things have happened. It appears that since the House and Senate have not totally closed down, in an effort to thwart any recess appointments by President Obama, there may be a way to get the FAA reauthorization bill back on track through various parliamentary maneuvers.
The Senate could ask for unanimous consent to pass the House version of the FAA extension and that would end the issue. Realistically, that solution may seem far-fetched, but it might be a way for Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Rockefeller to save face and allow the House extension with its Essential Air Services provisions (by the way, identical to those already in the passed Senate FAA bill) to move forward.
To prevent President Barack Obama, a Democrat, from making “recess appointments”—a maneuver often used by US presidents to put executive branch officials in positions for which the Senate is unwilling to confirm them—the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will hold “pro forma” sessions throughout the month even though it is on de facto adjournment. Since the Senate is not allowed to officially adjourn for more than three days unless the House is officially adjourned, the two chambers will technically be in session throughout this month.
The House and Senate recently passed a bill to extend the FAA bill filled with safety issues that were prompted by the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo. The addition of other issues to the extension legislation is not without precedent, but in past cases the new language was negotiated between both houses of Congress.
This extension will not affect the national labor relations issues that the Republicans inserted into the FAA bill itself, but it will allow a section of the legislation where the House and Senate agree to move forward rather than being left in the limbo of extension after extension.
There are bigger issues as well. The longer the FAA bill is extended without some form of long-term funding, the more delayed and more expensive the coming air traffic control system upgrade becomes. Perhaps this House initiative will start to move Congress in the right direction and get the FAA bill passes.
Unfortunately, having the labor relations issues tacked onto the FAA bill isn’t helping with the passage of the bill and movement on air traffic issues.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sent out a press release. Here are some of the more important paragraphs taken from that release.
“The House sent the 21st FAA extension to the Senate on July 20th, two weeks ago. Instead of passing this bill, which includes modest reforms to reduce exorbitant airline ticket subsidies and language the Senate already approved in February, the Senate chose to play politics and protect their pork,” Mica added.
“There are no labor provisions in the House-passed extension. House Republicans don’t vote in the Senate. Airlines don’t vote in the Senate. There are a number of unresolved issues in negotiations with the Senate, including the NMB labor provision. We have been willing to compromise, willing to negotiate, find common ground. But powerful Senate Democrats have chosen to protect an airline ticket subsidy program on the backs of thousands of FAA employees and airport construction workers. Now they plan to engage in a personal and political media bludgeoning of folks who disagree with them. I remain ready to negotiate in good faith and get those people back to work,” Mica concluded.
Yesterday, Senate majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had signaled their intention to pass the House extension. In fact, Senator Reid had acknowledged the need to pass the House extension, reduce high ticket subsidies and reform the Essential Air Service program. The following is an excerpt from a press briefing yesterday with Senator Reid:QUESTION: Senator, if Republicans don’t accept a clean extension, temporary extension to the FAA act here on the floor by the end of the day, will you guys accept the House version and reopen the FAA?
REID: Yes.
I have said that we have 80,000 jobs at least on the line. In Nevada, as an example, we have a new airport tower there where they started the construction about two weeks ago. All those people have been laid off. That’s a huge project. I don’t know, but it’s nearly a $100 million project.
Barbara Boxer just told me they have a problem with the control tower in Palm Springs, and as I understood what she said, they’ve shut down the construction on that. And that — they only have one there, so that’s difficult.
The Essential Air Service is a program that I believe in, but I also believe that $3,500 per passenger is a little extreme. That’s what (inaudible) Nevada is. And I do my best to protect the state, but sometimes you have to be reasonable.
And I think as we — we learned with this big deal we’ve just done, sometimes you have to step back and find out what’s best for the country and not be bound by some of your own personal issues. And I’m willing to give that up. I hope the other senators would do the same.Soon after that however, Senator Reid and his staff backed away from this expression of common sense. At the end of the day, Senate Democrats were back to blocking passage of the House extension and ensuring that the partial FAA shutdown would continue until Congress returns to Washington in September.
The Senate press statement issued a statement from Rockefeller who stuck to his guns and again insisted on what he feels is the proper process even though the House and Senate agree on the issue of Essential Air Service changes.
Today, Republicans once again objected to a simple, fair request—a ‘clean’ extension of funding that would maintain operations into the fall, allow the FAA to function, and restart bipartisan negotiations, which Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I have made clear we are ready to do. From day 1, House GOP leaders admitted openly—almost proudly—that they were doing this to gain ‘leverage’ toward a larger goal—undermining worker rights. Now, the victims of that GOP ploy are the passengers, airport safety and construction projects, 4,000 furloughed workers and more than 70,000 construction jobs around the country that are on hold until the Republicans realize that they can’t use extortion to get their way on this.
Hopefully, this may have a quick ending. With it costing the government around $20-$25 million dollars a day in lost revenues, it would seem that reality might trump process someday soon. I thought that was going to happen two days ago, but I was wrong. I certainly hope that someone steps up and gets the FAA back to work.
It’s one thing to quibble, but when process ends up costing the government more than a billion dollars (and we will reach that threshold before the end of the month) it is real money and real prime construction time lost.
Photo: SkyClouds © Leocha
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
