... at this week’s ACI-NA/AAAE Legislative Issues Conference in Washington, D.C., two things continued to stand out in the ongoing FAA reauthorization debate. One, NextGen must be the number one priority; and two, meeting the September 30 deadline for passage looks highly unlikely.
The two airport lobbying groups meet each summer to focus on the industry’s hot legislative issues. Day two featured five of the key U.S. House members involved in the discussion. Basically, each expressed their support for the House bill already passed by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and which waits financial review by the Ways & Means Committee. The counterpart Senate bill is in a similar state, awaiting review by the Finance Committee.
It’s all about system funding at this point, with a host of subset issues including raising the $4.50 cap on passenger facility charges. But after two years of listening to the various positions of FAA, the airlines, business and general aviation, and airports, what this year’s reauthorization has to be about first and foremost is truly modernizing the air traffic control system. Doing so changes everything. As Rep. Vern Ehlers (D-MI) says, “The most important thing is we have to do it right.â€
The Next Generation ATC system is based on digital communications. It will reduce separations in the sky, increasing capacity. It will reduce separations on the ground, increasing capacity. It will streamline a system that today is bursting at the seams. And in the end, it will facilitate new growth system-wide, from business aviation to airlines to airports. The House bill provides some $13 billion in funding for NextGen.
While is appears that Congress is serious about bringing ATC into the digital era, it’s highly questionable that the legislators will actually present a bill to the President by September 30, the day when all current authorization and appropriation laws expire. No one at the podium at this meeting was optimistic that was going to happen. There is so much on the Congressional plate to consider when it reconvenes in September (following its August recess) and such a high degree of partisanship in Washington these days, it looks to be highly unlikely.
The ‘best guess’ by those in the know seems to be getting a bill done by the end of the year, with FAA and industry living with one or more continuing resolutions to keep the system moving. After December 31, all bets are off, they say. Then we enter a Presidential election year, a time when Congress historically gets little done.
Thanks for reading. jfi