... while the Obama Administration seeks to curtail lobbying. The word from Congressional Quarterly Today is that proposed health care legislation continues to have the Senate so absorbed that it can’t address long-term aviation funding. Of course, there is also a dark cloud hanging overhead, the one that suggests that the Obama Administration will propose new ways to fund the system down the road -- which, in turn, suggests we won’t see “long-term” reauthorization anytime soon.
Comments one aviation trade association VP, “It’s a foregone conclusion on another extension.” According to Congressional Quarterly Today, “A senior Democratic Senate aide agreed that a three-month extension was likely. He said that would give senators enough time to gear up next year and that they are pressing for the full reauthorization to be first out of the gate in 2010.”
Don’t bet on it. Perhaps the end game for all of this is to have the feds take over aviation completely … have them own Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft, United Airlines, etc. Hey, the feds think they can run the automotive industry and health care … why not aviation?
Which leads to point number two. A recent Washington Post article suggests that “hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts. The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts.”
“The initiative is aimed at a system of advisory committees so vast that federal officials don't have exact numbers for its size; the most recent estimates tally nearly 1,000 panels with total membership exceeding 60,000 people.”
In the aviation biz, aviation rulemaking advisory committees are an integral part of setting policy and safety standards, as it should be. I contacted several aviation/airport trade associations on this proposal and nobody seems to have a clue what this new policy will mean to the industry. That’s not a good thing.
Consider this from the Post article: “Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections, and thousands of other government policies. ‘It's taken me years to learn what the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is," said Robert Vastine, a lobbyist for the Coalition of Service Industries who also serves as chairman of a trade advisory board. ‘It's a whole different and specialized world. It is not easily obtained knowledge, and they are crippling themselves terribly by ruling out all registered lobbyists.’”
Crippling themselves, and industry. What’s happening in Washington is getting ugly.
Thanks for reading. jfi