The effort to privatize the nation’s air traffic control system will officially die in the House next week when lawmakers vote on a long-term bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration.
Endorsements from President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan were not enough to usher the air traffic control privatization plan through the House, and now the plan will end up on a shelf until at least 2023.
The FAA legislation, which reauthorizes the administration’s programs and spending authority for the next five years, is poised to pass next week without a provision that would have put air traffic control services under the control of a private, nonprofit board.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., authored the privatization provision and remains a staunch advocate. But he removed it from the FAA bill when it became clear significant Republican opposition would prevent it from passing without the support of Democrats, who are even more adamantly against privatization and would not have been much help providing votes.
“We built strong support for this critical reform over the last two congresses, and we had a golden opportunity to move beyond the status quo and accomplish positive, transformational change with this bill,” said Shuster, who is retiring from Congress.
Proponents said privatization would speed up air traffic control modernization and a long-planned conversion from radar to a satellite-based GPS system.
President Trump said the proposal would give the system access to capital markets and investors that would provide additional funding needed for upgrades.
“If we adopt these changes, Americans can look forward to cheaper, faster, and safer travel,” Trump said in June. “A future where 20 percent of a ticket price doesn’t go to the government, and where you don’t have to sit on a tarmac or circle for hours and hours over an airport, which is very dangerous also, before you land.”
The proposal had the backing of major airlines and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
But lawmakers from rural districts, where general aviation is critical, feared they would be overburdened by new user fees and predicted having little say on an appointed board they believed would be dominated by commercial airlines.
“Establishing a private ATC board outside the purview of Congress with the unilateral power to collect fees and distribute service would threaten safety, accessibility, affordability and pilot generation which is already in a critical state,” five Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter to House GOP leaders urging them to strip out the privatization language. “Without proper and public oversight, this threat would be most readily felt in rural communities and the general aviation industry, which could experience reduction in ATC service.”
The plan was likely doomed to die in Congress, even if the House managed to pass it.
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee authored its own FAA authorization measure that excluded ATC privatization, in part because Democrats were poised to block the bill if it included such a provision.
“We should not privatize it,” Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said as he left the Senate chamber last week. “It’s hard to find a constituency outside this building that believes it’s a good idea.”
With the provision stripped from the House bill, the measure is expected to clear Congress long before a Sept. 30 deadline and will provide the first long-term reauthorization of the program in three years.
Over in the Senate, lawmakers are hoping to approve CIA Director Mike Pompeo. He is not expected to win the approval of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Monday night, since Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., opposes him and Republicans control that committee by a slim 11-10 majority.
But Republicans will bring him to the floor anyway, and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., has said she will vote in favor of Pompeo, which should provide the simple majority needed on the Senate floor.
Pompeo, who is currently the director of the CIA, has generated significant opposition from Senate Democrats, who say he is a war hawk who will not advocate for diplomacy. Opponents include the same Democrats who last year endorsed his nomination to run the CIA.
Republicans touted Pompeo’s trip this month to Pyongyang, where he sat face to face with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in an effort to lay the groundwork for an upcoming summit with Trump.
The Senate will take up Pompeo’s nomination as early as next week, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner. Cornyn criticized the Democrats who are trying to block his confirmation.
“It’s just their antipathy for the president, is what it signals,” Cornyn said. “It makes no sense to block Pompeo when 14 Democrats voted for him for CIA director and at a time when we are engaging in the most dangerous and fragile geopolitical negotiations in recent memory.”
