Update July 3, 2005

A few items of note happened on Capitol Hill this last week leading up to the Independence Day break and I thought two were addressing.

In the house, an amendment was offered to Transportations Appropriations to double the amount of funding in fiscal ’06 for hiring of air traffic controllers from around $25 million to around $50 million.  We of course let our non-support for this amendment be known.  Huh what! You say?  Well it turns out this amendment was more about trashing Amtrak than supporting ATC.  The idea was to increase our budget by $24,875,000 by decreasing Amtrak’s budget by … coincidentally … $24,875,000.  We didn’t feel actively getting on the Amtrak bashing wagon would serve our interests particularly and if the roles were reversed, if the Amtrak Unions came out in support of raiding our budget to pad theirs, we’d be seriously pissed.  Either way the amendment was defeated on a point of order so there you go.

It seems as if the backlash against the FAA and the White House budgetary and outsourcing policies is picking up in tempo.  A tripartisan amendment was offered to null and void the awarding to Lockheed Martin the A-76 award of the flight service competition.  Many argued the foolishness of privatization of this function, the words “inherently governmental” are even in the amendment (if you remember back a few years ago when ATC was re-designated as commercial in nature) and the debate was really quite spirited.  Arguing in favor were Sanders, Boren, Herseth and Kucinich.  Arguing against were Knollenberg and …. of course … the most vehement opponent was our good buddy Mica.

There was a voice vote which the republican chair declared in favor of the noes but after a recorded vote was demanded it turned out that not only was it not defeated, it passed 238-177 with some 40 odd Republican votes in favor.  Truly remarkable indeed!  Unfortunately, the amendment seems flawed as it deletes the $150 million dollar transition costs from the budget which would need to be restored or the amendment stricken.  Anybody want to guess which way that will go … anyone? …. Bueler?  Even if it survives and is adopted in the Senate as well, we have all seen what happens to bills in conference under this administration.

I hope this Fourth of July weekend is safe and fun for you all (if those two terms aren’t diametrically opposed in your world).  As you’re flying ‘Old Glory’ this weekend remember that she is but a beloved symbol of our country.  The Constitution really IS our country.  It is what has made our government and nation successful throughout our history and is what truly sets us apart from the world.  As frustrating as the demands of this document can occasionally be, without it we would be just another country … prosperous but not unique.  We can’t be who we are if we bypass our constitution or oppose its provisions due to the political whim of the moment.

Speaking of bypass, the FAA would like to bypass Congress over facility consolidations, collocations and closures.  The following article will explain more.  Have a great Fourth.

Grant Anderson

ganderson@natca.org

Flight International: FAA seeks to dodge Congress

The US Federal Aviation Administration, under pressure to replace or close some of its ageing facilities, could adopt the US Department of Defense's base-closing process as a way to avoid Congressional interference. The process "gets Congress out of the issue", Continental Airlines senior vice-president of government affairs Rebecca Cox told an Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA) meeting in Washington DC last week.

The independent Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission reviews closure lists compiled by the US defence secretary and sends its recommendations to the US president for his direct approval, said Cox, who has sat on two base-closure commissions. Carl McCullough, executive director of the DoD's policy board on federal aviation, said a BRAC "takes an analytical approach and it provides a political top cover".

While not specific in committing to a BRAC-type process, FAA administrator Marion Blakey told the ATCA meeting that the idea had merit, and said: "We need to be able to align today's infrastructure with the future system, and there is no way to go about that without consolidation".

Blakey said the FAA can use its administrative powers to shut facilities, but acknowledged the agency's attempts to consolidate flight service stations, for example, had met political opposition.