WASHINGTON — After dealing with the debt crisis, Senate negotiators tried and failed on Tuesday to end a stalemate over temporary financing for the Federal Aviation Administration, leaving 4,000 agency employees out of work and relying on airport safety inspectors to continue working without pay.þþþThe partial agency shutdown, which began on July 23 and is likely to continue at least through Labor Day, has also idled tens of thousands of construction workers on airport projects around the country. Dozens of airport inspectors have been asked by the F.A.A. to work without pay and to charge their government travel expenses to their personal credit cards to keep airports operating safely.þþAir traffic controllers and airplane inspectors, who are paid with separate accounts, have continued to work, but workers who oversee research on aviation systems, grants for airports and facilities and operations equipment have been furloughed.þþIf the stalemate continues through Labor Day, the government could lose roughly $1 billion in tax revenues on airline ticket sales.þþRay LaHood, the transporta-tion secretary, said he firmly believed that passenger safety was not at risk.þþ“No safety issues will be compromised,” Mr. LaHood told reporters on a conference call. “Flying is safe. Air traffic controllers are guiding airplanes. Safety inspectors are on duty and are doing their job. No one needs to worry about safety.”þþThe House began its August recess on Monday night, and the Senate followed Tuesday, leaving little hope for a resolution until Congress returns in September. President Obama, in remarks after the Senate’s passage of the debt ceiling bill, urged Congress to break the impasse, which he described as “another Washington-inflicted wound on America.”þþThe impasse centers on disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over a program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports. But behind the scenes, a larger fight has been taking place over federal rules on labor elections in the airline industry.þþRandy Babbitt, the F.A.A. administrator, said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that the agency was depending on the “professionalism” of airport safety inspectors to continue their work without being paid, because their jobs are paid for with money that is awaiting Congressional authorization.þþThose inspectors are the primary individuals responsible for ensuring that commercial airports comply with federal regulations. They also support runway safety action teams, oversee construction safety plans, investigate runway incursions and ensure that corrective action is taken on safety discrepancies.þþ“The reason they are out on the job is because of the risk to operational safety or life and property,” Mr. Babbitt said. “We can neither pay them nor can we compensate them for expenses. We are depending and living on their professionalism at this point.”þþIt is unclear how long the inspectors can continue to pay the bills for their own travel and hotel expenses. Typically, each of the roughly 40 regional inspectors travels to up to five airports in each two-week period, F.A.A. officials said.þþWhen F.A.A. financing expired last month, the agency also lost the ability to collect taxes on airline tickets. Those taxes amount to about $30 million a day and are paid into a trust fund that pays for much of its operations.þþThe House passed a bill last month that would extend F.A.A. financing through Sept. 16 and allow it to continue collecting the ticket tax. Congress has passed 20 such temporary spending bills over the last four years, in part because it has been unable to agree on a larger, long-term authorization of the agency’s budget and capital plans.þþBut the House temporary bill also would end $14 million in subsidies that provided commercial airline service to 16 rural airports. The law was written in a way that appeared to single out for closing airports in the states of prominent Senate Democrats, including the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.þþDemocrats say Republicans are trying to save a few million dollars at the expense of the ticket tax, which would generate roughly $200 million a week.þþSome of the airport closings were included in a long-term spending bill passed by the Senate in February. But Senate Democrats, including Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia who is chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the F.A.A., objected to their inclusion in what they said should have been a “clean” temporary spending measure.þþMr. Rockefeller tried to draft a compromise with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, that offered to cut $70 million from the rural airport program — several times more than the amount that the Republican bill sought to cut. That effort was blocked by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.þþþ“We are going to lose $1 billion in the aviation trust fund if we leave this Congress for the month of August and we don’t extend the F.A.A.,” Ms. Hutchison said.þþSenator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, accused Republicans of “hostage taking” by refusing to approve an F.A.A. spending bill without including the rural air service cuts.þþRepresentative John L. Mica, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House transportation committee, said the rural air cuts were intended to reduce wasteful spending, like the subsidies of more than $3,700 per passenger that paid for air service in Ely, Nev., that benefits fewer than 500 passengers a year.þþ“Those 4,000 F.A.A. employees have been furloughed so some in the Senate can protect their own political pork,” Mr. Mica said.þþMr. Reid said Republicans were using the rural airport issue as cover for an effort to change a recently instituted federal labor regulation that made it easier for unions to organize at airline companies.þþThe new regulation, instituted by the National Mediation Board, requires an employee vote on labor representation to be approved by a majority of those voting. Previously, the rule required a majority of all affected employees, meaning that employees who failed to vote were counted as “no” votes.þþMr. Reid said Republicans were trying to reverse the rule to benefit Delta Air Lines and other companies that have fought against union representation for their workers. A bill passed this year by the House that would grant permanent reauthorization for F.A.A. operations included the labor provision that would change the ruling by the mediation board.þþMr. Hatch said the administration and Democrats in Congress were trying to “put their thumb on the scale in favor of big labor.”þþSenate Democrats had hoped that they could quickly pass a temporary spending bill on Tuesday without the rural airport provision, and offer it to the House during the recess. While House members are gone, the House officially reconvenes every few days for a few minutes, a technical move meant to block recess appointments.þþSenate Democrats maintained that the House, in one of those sessions, could adopt a clean spending bill by unanimous consent. But ultimately they were not able to gather the forces to pass a new bill.þ
Source: NY Times
