At the end of last week and early this week the FAA Reauthorization bill has been manhandled by the Senate leadership. A press conference yesterday was a display of the absolute lack of leadership on this issue in the Senate. One might be forgiven if the thought that the bill was given up for slaughter crossed their minds.
The majority in the Senate is attempting to drape this in the robes of a jobs bill on one hand and offering it as a short-term sacrifice to die with a thousand cuts from health care reformists. Hopefully, later, it will emerge as an FAA bill designed to strengthen our air transport system, drive the U.S. economy and provide passenger protections. Until then, it is a sad show and going nowhere.
Here’s an assessment of where this FAA bill stands as of the end of a hastily announced press conference yesterday. Eventually, the Senate version will have to be modified and reconsidered without the hoopla of jobs and the distractions of health care.
1. The Senate leadership decided to send the exact flawed bill that never made it into law to the floor and ask for amendments. Rather than look at the pending legislation and modify it to take advantage of the conference committee deliberations last fall, they decided to ignore any lessons learned and toss the bill with the exact wording back into the hopper.
2. Since this is one of the first major bills to be introduced into the Senate, and since it comes on the heels of major concerns from the Republican side to unworkable aspects of the health care reform efforts that were voted through the House and Senate, the FAA reauthorization has already been sullied with amendments to change health care. This bill has been languishing in the Congress for three years. If this kind of politicing is sign of what can be expected, we may be waiting for another year or so before anything substantial is done with the FAA bill.
3. The FAA bill language may undermine stronger Department of Transportation (DOT) passenger protections. Consumer protection grandstanding is not productive when the protections are already being put into place by regulatory means. Sen. Boxer was forced to admit that the tarmac-delay section she has introduced into the bill will not be as strong as that proposed in the current DOT rulemaking.
4. Regarding airline fee transparency, Sen. Rockerfeller noted that consumers deserve clear and transparent pricing including all fees so that they can compare prices across airlines while they are shopping for airline tickets. Unfortunately, the language in the current bill doesn’t allow such price comparisons.
5. The Washington DC perimeter rule, one of the most contentious parts of the FAA bill was never addressed except during the all-too-short questioning period. This was a roadblock with the last FAA bill and one of the main reasons together with changing unionization rules at Federal Express that we don’t have a law already enacted.
Of course, there are more problems to be ironed out. Obviously, the press conference with Sen. Rockefeller, Sen. Schumer, Sen. Boxer and Sen. Klobuchar together with Roger Dow, head of US Travel Association left more questions unanswered than answered.
This FAA bill exercise on display yesterday is moving only on its path through the Senate. Perhaps the more important exercise in legislation is beginning to work its way through the House of Representatives and the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee where significant changes to the past bill versions will be introduced and woven into the new wording.
Let’s hope that in this year the House and Senate can pass a FAA bill that can move our airline transportation system into the future and strenghten the airline system and passenger protections. This week’s beginning looks pretty dismal.
Photo: 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.
