US

FAA shutdown continues while Dems and GOP play the blame game

C.J. Ciaramella Contributor
Font Size:

The Federal Aviation Administration entered its fifth day of partial shutdown Wednesday as the House and Senate remain deadlocked over funding for the agency.

The partial shutdown began midnight a week ago Friday when temporary funding expired. Congress failed to pass a short-term funding extension earlier that day.

At issue was the Essential Air Service program, which currently provides around $200 million annually in federal subsidies to rural airports.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Florida Republican Congressman John Mica, added provisions to the extension to cut subsidies to 13 airports — three more than the Senate had been willing to allow — and cap subsidies at $1,000 per passenger.

At a Wednesday press conference, Democratic Reps. Eleanor Homes Norton, Peter DeFazio, Nick Rahall and Jerry Costello laid blame at the feet of House Republicans, who pushed through the extension after the Senate made clear the additional cuts to the EAS program were a deal-breaker.

Democrats said that in addition to the 4,000 FAA employees furloughed, the shut down has halted $6.2 billion worth of construction projects and potentially 90,000 airport construction jobs. (RELATED: Airlines pocket tax revenue during FAA shutdown)

“The furlough of these workers is a unique and callous departure from the Democratic and Republican tradition that ways holds the American people harmless when we fail to reach agreement on bills,” Norton said. “The opposite is the case here. Our constituents are harmed and Congress is untouched, and, as of now, unmoving.”

Democrats are demanding passage of an extension without the provisions, or for the House to appoint a conference committee to hammer out the differences.

House Republicans counter that the cuts are modest — about $16 million annually — and have accused Senate Democrats of stonewalling the extension to protect the subsidies, some of which happen to fall in the districts of powerful Democrat Senators such as Harry Reid.

“Those 4,000 FAA employees have been furloughed so some in the Senate can protect their own political pork with airline ticket subsidies of more than $3,700 per passenger,” Mica said in a statement Monday. “For example, subsidies are this exorbitant in Ely, Nevada for each of the 471 passengers flying in and out of the airport each year.”

“I stand ready and committed to work with the Senate and all parties on an FAA bill, but the only way to get FAA employees back to work immediately is for the Senate to act now,” Mica continued.

The transportation committee also said the Senate had already approved almost the exact same cuts in a long-term FAA reauthorization bill draft earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the FAA is not collecting roughly $200 million in weekly airline ticket taxes.

The last long-term FAA funding bill expired in 2007. The agency has run on temporary extensions since then.