Dysfunctional government hurts aviation system

Dysfunctional government hurts aviation system Washington Notebook

By Eric Kulisch
   Is this any way to run a government? Are there any adults in Congress who can get along in the national interest?
   The United States avoided defaulting on its debt this week when lawmakers and President Obama agreed on a weak, last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling while postponing any hard fiscal choices. The deal came after weeks of acrimonious fighting on how to reduce annual deficits and the nation's debt load. A handful of Tea Party ideologues almost drove us over the cliff because they refuse to compromise on spending or taxes, even though a one-size approach to downsizing government may not be the best medicine right now. Deficits are a big problem, but we could be on the brink of tipping back into recession, and forcing through austerity measures is more likely to lead to more job losses and damage the economy.
   Tackling waste and overflowing entitlement programs is a worthwhile endeavor, but timing is essential. Now is a bad time to find religion on government spending after Republicans spent the Bush years blowing a giant hole in the federal budget.
   If the manufactured debt-ceiling crisis wasn't bad enough to demonstrate the total lack of leadership in Washington, then look at what happened with the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration for two weeks.

Reid

   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated Thursday he and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, agreed on a stopgap measure to restore funding to the FAA through mid-September.
   The move will allow 4,000 non-essential FAA workers who had been furloughed to return to their jobs, and 70,000 construction workers to resume work on projects around the country. Stop-work orders issued by the FAA also impacted engineers, planners, program managers and technicians involved in research and testing of safety, navigation, communication, and weather-monitoring technology.

Boehner

   The shutdown also slowed progress on an approaching deadline for certifying airports to handle Boeing's new 747-8 freighter, Reuters reported.
   Boeing said Aug. 3 that the jumbo cargo plane has completed certification testing. The FAA also has to certify the 747-8 before its scheduled September delivery to launch customer Cargolux.
   You know things are ridiculous when the agency that is responsible for ensuring the safety of the flying public has to tell airport inspectors to pay expenses with their own credit cards until normal operations return.
   Of course, the situation is a byproduct of the fact that Congress has been unable to pass a multiyear FAA reauthorization bill for more than three years. The FAA has operated under 20 short-term extensions of its funding during that period. The situation has left the agency in limbo, unable to move ahead on new initiatives such as the Next Generation aviation system. Instead, it can only do its best to maintain the status quo when it comes to safety, managing congested airways or infrastructure and technology upgrades.

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   The House and Senate each passed four-year blueprints for the FAA this year, but could not settle on a final bill. Congress was preoccupied with the debt ceiling crisis and the short-term funding extension the FAA had been operating under expired on July 23.
   Disagreements over provisions covering union organizing in the airline industry and continuation of subsidies for certain rural airports led to the impasse.
   Here's how the politics played out.
   The Senate objected to a provision in the House's long-term bill that would overturn a National Mediation Board ruling that makes it easier for airline and railroad workers to unionize. The ruling says that if a majority of workers in a union election vote for representation, the union will be recognized. That's how it works in many other industries.
   Previously, unions had to win a majority of all the employees in a work unit, whether they voted or not. Workers who didn't vote in a union election were counted as no votes.
   The Republican position is viewed as an attempt to help mostly non-union Delta Air Lines from efforts to unionize its workforce.

Mica

   President Obama threatened to veto a comprehensive bill with the labor provision. As the funding deadline in July approached, House leaders led by Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica offered a short-term funding bill that added a provision eliminating subsidies for flights to rural airports within 90 miles of a large or medium-size hub airport. The subsidies are used to entice airlines to provide service to smaller airports they might normally bypass.
   You'll note that three of the 13 airports affected by the bill are in the districts of Reid (Nevada) Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (West Virginia), and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Montana).
   A separate provision would eliminate subsidies of more than $1,000 per ticket at three airports, including Ely, Nev.
   Mica claimed the reforms to the Essential Air Services program were included in the comprehensive FAA bill the Senate passed in February and that senators like Reid were backing away from the bill to protect their 'pork.'
   The move boxed in Democrats with no good choices: if they didn't pass one of the two bills they didn't like then they'd get blamed for shutting down the FAA.
   Under the arrangement, the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday will pass by unanimous consent a bill the Republican-led House passed in July that temporarily allows the FAA to conduct its business and slashes $16 million from the budget for subsidies paid to rural airports, according to the online newspaper Politico.
   But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will use his authority to waive the airports from the cuts.
   It turns out LaHood always had the right under the bill to exempt the airports from the subsidy cuts, but the White House wanted a clean bill.
   'After waiting weeks and doing nothing but complaining about the process and blaming everyone but themselves, Senate Democrat leaders failed again today to approve an extension of FAA programs before leaving Washington for the August break. Apparently, protecting outrageous airline ticket subsidies is more important than putting 4,000 furloughed FAA employees and thousands of airport construction workers across the country back to work,' Mica said in a statement earlier in the week.
   The inability to reach a compromise sooner on the FAA bill cost about $420 million at a time when the federal government is staring at a huge budget shortfall and massive cuts in services. That's because the FAA did not have the authority to collect security fees and ticket taxes from the airlines without current legislative approval in place. The taxes help cover air traffic control, custom inspections, security and infrastructure projects. And that's money the government won't get back.
   The extension is only effective for six weeks, so we'll all be back to square one again facing the same debate very soon. ' Eric Kulisch