Leaders in both the House of Representatives and the Senate reached an agreement on Friday that would avoid a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the agreement set the stage for a vote next week on a short-term bill that would extend funding for the FAA through the end of January. It also would extend funding for highway and transit assistance programs through the end of March, he said.
Republicans and Democrats have been debating for months over how much funding the FAA should receive and which small airports should receive air service subsidies. Republicans also wanted a provision dealing with unionization placed in the bill, but Democrats’ opposed the provision because they thought it would harm union rights. Those differences caused the FAA to furlough thousands of workers this summer for a couple of weeks and immediately stop more than 200 construction projects – legislators ended up passing a short-term funding bill to get those workers back to their jobs.
To get around those obstacles, Republicans agreed not to include any spending cuts or contentious policy provisions in the bill, Mica said – presumably keeping union rights out of the legislation. The chairman declined to elaborate on what concessions Senate Democrats gave but said they made concessions regarding some of the more difficult issues that have been holding up passage of a long-term funding bill.
“This wouldn’t be done if there weren’t terms that satisfied both sides,” Mica said. “It’s a positive step.”
Mica originally was going to introduce a short-term extension of the bill on Friday, which would have cut the FAA’s budget by 5 percent and rural air service subsidies by 25 percent; however, House and Senate leaders did not favor that bill and agreed to begin discussions, which led to the short-term bill that will be voted on next week.
The agreement also comes one day after the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved legislation to extend the funding at current levels until Congress could work out a long-term deal. The short-term bill passed the committee unanimously.
“I hope this sends a message to the people of this country that we can work together, and we should,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works committee, said.
She said the bipartisan agreement to extend funding would mean California will not lose more than $4.6 billion and as many as 164,000 jobs like it would have if a deal could not have been reached.
House Republicans plan to bring the bill up for a vote Tuesday or Wednesday.
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