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Sen. Rockefeller 'angry' over FAA bill delays
The chairman of the Senate's transportation committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), is "angry" that there has not been a long-term funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration — and he blames the aviation industry for the delay.
Speaking at a meeting of the Aero Club of Washington on Monday, Rockefeller said that competing interest among sectors of the aviation industry were harming their collective goal: a reauthorization of the FAA bill that has been temporarily extended 22 times since 2007.
"I am both angry and frustrated that after four years Congress still has not been able to pass a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration," he said. "Everyone in this room recognizes the FAA is one of the most important agencies in the federal government. But that doesn’t seem to force compromise.
The West Virginia lawmaker detailed a series of issues that have bubbled up in Congressional negotiations over FAA going back as far as 1996.
He included a fight over labor provisions that led to a nearly two-week shutdown of the agency earlier this year. Then, Senate Democrats accused House Republicans of inserting cuts to rural air service subsidies into a short-term extension of FAA in retribution for the Senate not going along with changes to union rules for transportation workers. About 4,000 workers were furloughed during the impasse between the chambers.
Rockefeller said the shutdown also made him upset.
"I do not understand how the fixation of one airline can be seen as paramount in such that the House would shut down the FAA to get its way," he said.
Rockefeller said he was willing to get over the shutdown of the FAA, which aviation advocates said cost the federal government about $30 million per day in lost sales taxes on airline tickets.
"I have to move beyond the political ugliness of this summer," he said. "I want a bill. I want a Next Generation Air Traffic Control System; I want a viable airline industry; I want modern airports; I want a healthy [general aviation] industry; I want a thriving workforce; and I want the good jobs that come with a growing U.S. aerospace industry. I want our economic future to be strengthened by a vibrant aviation system."
But he warned the Aero Club of the consequences of the possible alternative.
"If the FAA bill does not pass soon, I believe it will be some time before an FAA Reauthorization package will pass any Congress," he said. "Another shutdown is not out of the question, and it would cost all of us far too much."
