WASHINGTON — Congressional committees have set a July 4 target date for the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill to be signed into law, but lawmakers must clear a few obstacles including their differences over a bond-related provision before the legislation can be finalized.
The FAA and airport funding programs authorized by the pending law have been operating under short-term extensions since the last full authorization expired on Sept. 30, 2007. The current extension expires July 3.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., is predicting a multiyear FAA bill would be signed into law by July 4, committee spokesman Jim Berard confirmed yesterday. Berard said Oberstar is “confident that we can get there” after working through June on the bill.
“A lot of this is going to be done in phone calls, conversations on the floor, that sort of thing” because the lawmakers are not formally in conference on the measure, Berard said. “We have the House position, they have the Senate position, and we’re going to have to work through differences.”
An aide for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee said yesterday that the panel expects to be finished with the bill by the week of July 4 when Congress goes on recess.
The Senate unanimously approved its FAA bill in mid-March. The House approved its version in late March by a vote of 276 to 145.
Variations between the House and Senate proposals include whether to increase the cap on passenger facilities charges, which generate revenue that airports use to back bonds. The cap has been set at $4.50 for about 10 years. Airport groups want Congress to raise it to as high as $7.50.
The Senate bill — sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who chairs the commerce committee, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who heads the committee’s aviation panel — would establish a pilot program allowing six airports to set their own PFCs. However, the airports would be responsible for collecting the charges themselves. The potentially limitless PFCs would not be tacked on to airline tickets or collected by airlines.
Meanwhile, the House brings to the table a bill that would increase the cap on PFCs to $7.00. The difference between PFC provisions is one sticking point that House and Senate members will need to resolve, along with a House proposal to reclassify FedEx employees that does not exist in the Senate FAA bill.
But lawmakers “have all of June” to strike a compromise between the two measures, Berard said.
