Senate to take up bill to end partial FAA shutdown

WASHINGTON — The Senate is poised to pass legislation ending a two-week partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration that has cost the government about $400 million in uncollected airline ticket taxes and idled thousands of workers.

A bipartisan compromise reached Thursday cleared the way for the Senate to approve a House bill extending the FAA's operating authority through mid-September, including a provision that eliminates $16.5 million in air service subsidies to 13 rural communities. Senators have scattered for their August recess, but the measure can be approved today if leaders from both parties agree to adopt it by "unanimous consent."

FAA employees could return to work and payments for airport construction projects could resume as soon as Monday if President Barack Obama signs the bill over the weekend, transportation officials said.

Republicans had insisted on the subsidy cuts as their price for restoring the FAA to full operation. But bill also includes language that gives Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood the authority to continue subsidized service to the 13 communities if he decides it's necessary. Democrats said they expect the administration to effectively waive or negate the cuts.

The shutdown began when much of Washington was transfixed by the stalemate over raising the government's debt ceiling. During that time, the FAA furloughed 4,000 workers but kept air traffic controllers and most safety inspectors on the job. Forty airport safety inspectors worked without pay, picking up their own travel expenses. Some 70,000 workers on construction-related jobs on airport projects from Palm Springs, Calif., to New York City were idled as the FAA couldn't pay for the work.

But airline passengers in the busy travel season hardly noticed any changes. Airlines continued to work as normal, but they were no longer authorized to collect federal ticket taxes at a rate of $30 million a day. For a few lucky ticket buyers, prices dropped. But for most, nothing changed because airlines raised their base prices to match the tax.

Some passengers will now be eligible for tax refunds if they bought their tickets before July 23 and their travel took place during the shutdown.

As the debt ceiling crisis passed and Congress headed home for its August recess without resolving the standoff, Obama spoke out Wednesday and LaHood urged Congress to return to deal with the issues. Obama expressed dismay that Congress would allow up to $1.2 billion in tax revenue to go out the door — the amount that could have been lost by the time lawmakers return in September.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the deal Thursday afternoon, saying it would put 74,000 transportation and construction workers back to work.

"This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain," said Reid, D-Nev. "But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that."

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma won't attempt to block passage of the bill when it comes up today, spokesman John Hart said. Coburn blocked several attempts by Democrats to pass an extension bill without the subsidy cuts.

The partisan standoff that led to the shutdown began last month when Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, signaled his intention to attach the subsidy cuts to a bill to extend the FAA's operating authority through mid-September. The agency has been operating under a series of 20 short-term extensions since 2007, when the last long-term FAA funding bill expired.

Senate Democrats complained that Republicans were breaking with precedent by using an extension bill to enact policy changes that hadn't been agreed upon. Even Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas called the measure a "procedural hand grenade." Senators refused to pass the House bill, saying to do so would be giving into legislative blackmail and inviting Republicans to up the ante on the next extension bill.

Obama, who had scolded Congress on Wednesday for not solving the standoff, expressed relief.

"I'm pleased that leaders in Congress are working together to break the impasse involving the FAA so that tens of thousands of construction workers and others can go back to work," Obama said in a statement.

Both the House and Senate passed long-term funding bills for the FAA earlier this year, but negotiations on resolving differences and finalizing those bills are stalemated. The biggest holdup is a labor provision in the House long-term bill. Republicans want to overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.