House passes FAA bill; negotiations with Senate next

The US House of Representatives on Friday passed a four-year, $59.7 billion FAA reauthorization bill by a 223-196 vote, setting the stage for negotiations with the Senate to attempt to craft a final bill that could pass both chambers of Congress and be signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The bill passed Friday is largely along the lines of the legislation cleared by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in February (ATW Daily News, Feb.18). Negotiations ahead could be contentious; the House bill has major differences with the Senate's two-year, $34.5 billion reauthorization legislation passed in February (ATW Daily News, Feb. 18) and the White House has signaled that the House version is not acceptable to Obama.

In order to keep FAA running, the House and Senate last week passed the 18th extension of agency funding since its authorization officially expired on Sept. 30, 2007. The latest extension will keep FAA operating through May 31. The last extension had been set to expire March 31.

Two provisions in the House bill are already sparking serious debate. One would repeal the National Mediation Board's decision last year to change air and rail labor group voting rules to lower the threshold for unionization (ATW Daily News, June 29, 2010). Another would phase out the Essential Air Service program that subsidizes airline flights to rural communities.

While the FAA bill was being considered by the House last week, the White House issued a statement saying that overturning the NMB ruling "would undermine a fundamental principle of fairness in union representation elections—that outcomes should be determined by a majority of the valid ballots cast." It added, "If the president is presented with a bill that would not safeguard the ability of railroad and airline workers to decide whether or not they would be represented by a union based upon a majority of the ballots cast in an election or that would degrade safe and efficient air traffic, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill."

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) defended the provision, arguing that union "certification rules were changed unilaterally in May 2010 by the three-member National Mediation Board. Such changes are properly the authority of the Congress." He called the NMB rule change and an "onerous" amendment defeated during the House floor debate on FAA reauthorization that would have struck the union voting provision from the bill "nothing more than favors to organized labor." 

The House bill would phase out EAS for all states except Alaska and Hawaii by 2013. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is one of many lawmakers who are fierce defenders of the program and are likely to strongly resist its elimination.