Lautenberg & Menendez fire off a letter to GOP leadership on FAA shutdown

by: Rosi Efthim

Tue Jul 26, 2011 at 11:34:07 AM EDT

Nearly 650 South Jersey workers were furloughed over the weekend at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City, as the FAA halted work on air travel infrastructure projects across the country. Construction workers. Planners. Engineers. All were sent home after Congress failed to pass legislation re-authorizing federal ticket taxes - these are used to fund building projects for facilities like new runways and new control towers and modernizing air traffic control systems. Nearly 4,000 FAA employees across the country are furloughed without pay. Plus 87,000 construction jobs stopped, across the US. To maintain a safety baseline, the shutdown can only be partial. Unaffected are air traffic controllers and safety inspectors, who will remain on the job. So will FAA employees who inspect planes and test pilots.

Today, senators Lautenberg and Menendez fired off a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to steer his GOP conference to resolution that gets FAA back up. Our senators peg Republicans in both the House and Senate for the failure. GOP lawmakers tacked on a list of provisions to a long-term spending bill for the FAA approved by the GOP-led House this spring. On that list is a GOP-driven proposal, sought by the airline industry, that would make it more difficult for airline workers to unionize.

And they're not budging, even as the FAA warns that grinding these projects to a halt could significantly increase their ultimate cost to taxpayers. Even though FAA's also unable to collect the full measure of taxes on airline tickets bought, depriving the government of revenue (with most airlines pocketing that as a bonus instead of passing that savings on to you).

Senators' letter, after the jump.

July 26, 2011

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
United States Senate
S-230, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator McConnell:

We write to urge you to work with your Republican conference to pass a clean extension of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorization.  This legislation is essential to our nation and New Jersey.

As you know, Congress has passed 19 clean FAA extensions over the past four years, as well as one extension with bipartisan and unanimously supported aviation safety provisions.  Clean extensions are merely a continuation of current funding and policy; they help to maintain critical programs while legislation is negotiated.  The House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 2553, which contains a controversial and divisive policy provision that impacts air service to several states. This policy provision is part of the ongoing negotiations between the House and the Senate.  Controversial policy provisions like this should not be in the extension.  Senate Democrats have advanced a clean extension without policy riders in order to continue the FAA's important work, while negotiations of the FAA reauthorization are finalized.  However, Senate Republicanshave objected to passage of this critical extension.  As a result, the FAA authorization expired at midnight on Friday, July 22, 2011.

In New Jersey, the FAA shutdown has furloughed approximately 650 workers at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City.  These dedicated men and women are working to develop the Next Generation Air Transportation System and modernize our air traffic control system.  Unfortunately, these employees have been sent home and their critical safety work has ground to a halt.   The shutdown also impacts the ability of our state to move forward with important safety and capacity airport improvement projects.  

We urge you and your conference to join Democrats to pass a clean extension of the FAA.  We appreciate your attention to this critical issue.