The Federal Aviation Administration’s authorization will expire in one month, right in the middle of the busy summer travel season, unless Congress passes a multi-year extension or at least a short-term measure to keep the FAA up and running.
All eyes are on the House, where Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster is hoping to preserve a measure he authored that would privatize the nation’s air traffic controllers.
A Senate bill authored by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., doesn’t include language to privatize the air traffic control system, or ATC.
Lawmakers face a July 15 deadline to write a bill that can pass both chambers, and neither side is enthusiastic about passing another short-term measure.
Democrats and many Republicans in the House don’t want the ATC network privatized and are pushing back, leaving Shuster to decide whether to try to forge some kind of compromise or walk away from his measure.
“The ball is in Shuster’s court,” one top GOP Senate aide close to the negotiations told the Washington Examiner.
Shuster, his aides said, is still deciding what to do.
“Chairman Shuster has not made a decision yet,” his spokesman, Jim Billimoria, told the Examiner. “We’ll have more clarity on the direction we are going in over the next few weeks.”
Shuster’s legislation would transfer control of the ATC to an independent, nonprofit corporation governed by an appointed board of directors. “It allows the FAA to focus on safety, where it belongs,” Shuster said when he unveiled the bill earlier this year.
The independent agency will be able to go outside of Congress to obtain the money needed to modernize the system, rather than having to rely on the appropriations process that is so often politicized.
The agency would have the authority to borrow money, issue bonds and make investments independently, which Shuster and other privatization proponents say will help the antiquated ATC modernize more quickly.
But critics in Congress are reluctant to cede control of the group and general aviation groups lobbied heavily against it, fearing they would be tagged with user fees.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., also registered opposition, while Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, threw up a roadblock by declaring his panel would have to approve the plan because the independent board would have the the power to levy fees.
But Shuster and fellow proponents on his committee are not ready to give up.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., a senior member of Shuster’s panel and the former chairman, said he believes there can be a compromise on privatization of the air traffic controllers.
“There is room to redraft it to regain general aviation support and the Senate support to keep control of the money” in Congress, Mica said.
Thune, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, is hoping the House will simply adopt the Senate bill, a long-term measure lawmakers approved in April and which includes new safety regulations Congress is eager to implement. When asked about a compromise with the House on privatization of air traffic controllers, Thune appeared doubtful.
“Well, I’m not sure how,” Thune said. “If there is a compromise out there, I’d like to know what it is.”
Thune didn’t dismiss privatization entirely however.
“It just seems like maybe the idea is not quite ripe yet,” Thune told the Examiner in a conversation outside the Senate chamber. “I think it’s an idea that we need to continue to take a look at, but for now, I think we are going to have to move forward. And if they can’t get their idea sold over there, then I think we need to move forward with another approach.”
