Schumer Urges Colleagues to Act With Urgency on FAA Bill
WASHINGTON — With his chamber at an impasse, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to urge his colleagues to “work constructively and with urgency” toward an agreement on the five-year FAA reauthorization bill.
“Nobody — absolutely nobody — should want us to slip past the deadline because that would needlessly increase risks for so many travelers and so many federal workers,” Schumer said.
At the moment, senators on both sides of the aisle have raised objections to the legislation that just last month had been the cause of much bipartisan celebration.
The draft bill would authorize more than $105 billion in appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration and about $738 million in funding for the National Transportation Safety Board through 2028.
The bill would replace a temporary extension of FAA funding that is set to expire at midnight on May 10.
At issue as the clock keeps ticking are concerns among some Democrats that a provision of the bill effectively undercuts a Biden administration policy that would afford consumers automatic refunds for delayed or canceled flights.
The language in the bill at present states that in order to receive these refunds, passengers would have to request them in writing.
Democrats are also opposed to a provision that would add up to five daily flights in and out of Reagan National Airport.
The other holdup is a push by Republicans to prevent senators from either party from using the FAA bill to pass any unrelated legislation they can roll into it.
These include the Kids Online Safety Act, sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, D-Tenn., funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, backed by Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
Late Tuesday night, several Republicans shot down a proposed agreement that would have allowed for a vote on more than a dozen proposed amendments and presumably moved the reauthorization a step closer to passage.
Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has offered a substitute amendment that would bolster the consumer refund provision.
Schumer has filed cloture on both the underlying bill and the Cantwell substitute amendment.
The bicameral and bipartisan draft FAA reauthorization unveiled last month is a sweeping bill that includes measures to address the nation’s air traffic controller shortage and the recent uptake in near-misses that have occurred at a number of the nation’s airports.
Negotiators on the Hill also agreed to block airlines from charging extra to families whose members want to sit together during a flight.
A noteworthy safety inclusion is a new requirement that aircraft cockpit recordings be saved for up to 25 hours, a marked increase from the current two-hour requirement.
Also on the safety front, the bill would also require the FAA to increase hiring of aircraft manufacturing safety inspectors.
If Senate leaders can’t advance the reauthorization bill to passage by the end of the week, Schumer might be forced to proceed with a stopgap extension of the FAA’s authority.
If he does, according to Senate staffers, the extension could extend through the election and end shortly after the seating of the next Congress.
“To get [the FAA reauthorization] done, we need three things: cooperation, haste and a common desire to get to yes,” Schumer said on Wednesday. “Any single member who insists on an extraneous change will only increase the likelihood that we miss the deadline. God forbid something should happen when we do.”
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue
