Aviation

After another day of sniping on the floor of the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday teetered on the verge of its second partial shutdown in two months.

The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would extend the beleaguered agency’s funding through January, as well as federal highway programs until the end of March. But Coburn has held up a vote on the measure in the Senate because of a disagreement over provisions in the highway portion of the bill calling for increasing the number of bike lanes and trees along roadways.

For a second day Thursday, Reid and Coburn took their disagreement to the floor of the Senate. Each shot down the other’s requests to move forward on the FAA and highway funding bills.

In a 238-186 vote, the House approved Rep. Scott's bill prohibiting the NLRB from ordering a company to relocate workers.

The House on Thursday morning approved a rule setting the terms of debate for H.R. 2587, which would prohibit the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from ordering companies to close up shop or relocate employment.

The rule was passed on a 239-176, mostly party-line vote after a predictably heated debate over how much power the NLRB should have over industry decisions to move from state to state. The bill is a reaction to the NLRB's suit against Boeing for seeking to open a production line in the right-to-work state of South Carolina, which the NLRB said was an effort to retaliate against Washington state union workers.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

The Department of Transportation is moving to ban electronic cigarettes on flights.

The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Boeing's new 747 model for flying closer to other airplanes.

An airline passenger who was detained on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks says she was racially profiled.

New York City is launching a bike share program.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Tom Coburn each said the other could stop looming furloughs.

Additional Pentagon budget cuts will hinder national security and cause massive job loss, according to the aerospace industry.

"One senator" could prevent the Senate from approving a bill to extend funding for highways and the Federal Aviation Administration, the latter of which expires Friday, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a speech on the floor Wednesday, referring to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla).

Reid (D-Nev.) said under Senate rules, a hold Coburn is placing on a bill to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could prevent lawmakers in the chamber from voting a bill to extend the FAA's funding through January and highway spending through March. The deal, which has already been passed by the House, is widely expected to be approved in the Senate and is being hailed as a victory by transportation advocates after the partial shutdown of the FAA last month.

But Reid said Wednesday that Coburn's objection to the $6.9 billion FEMA bill because of its price could cost more emergency management dollars.

“I am in a situation where I can’t get to this bill until Friday, when it expires,” Reid said of the FAA bill.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one of 179 passengers on a plane that was evacuated Wednesday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., according to several published reports.

A spokesman for the Supreme Court told local news affiliates that Ginsburg, age 78, was on board United Airlines Flight 586 from Dulles to San Francisco when the pilot reported an engine fire to air traffic control. The plane was still on the ground, but passengers were evacuated from the plane using emergency slides before they were returned to the terminal.

Gingsburg, the oldest justice on the Supreme Court, reportedly used one of the slides, but neither she nor any of the other passengers were seriously injured in the incident.

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Transportation associations that had once hoped for more substantive reforms were breathing a sigh of relief Tuesday.

The House passed a bill to avert another FAA shutdown, but didn't provide back pay to workers furloughed earlier this month.