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WASHINGTON (AP) — The congressional standoff that has partially
shut down the Federal Aviation Administration has some curious
math.
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Lawmakers risk losing more than $1 billion in revenue from
uncollected airline ticket taxes in a quarrel between Senate
Democrats and House Republicans who are demanding a $16.5 million
cut in rural air service subsidies.
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The shutdown is less than two weeks old and already the government
has lost more than $250 million in revenue because airlines’
authority to collect ticket taxes has expired. The entire annual
budget of the rural air services program is about $200
million.
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“I’m a fiscal conservative,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas,
told the Senate on Monday. “I’m trying to make the cuts that are
necessary, trying to do the things that are right, but … that
just doesn’t add up.”
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The Senate, with the federal debt crisis resolved, is expected to
leave by the end of the week for its August recess. The House has
already left. Unless the Senate accepts the House bill, lost
revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes could exceed $1.2
billion before lawmakers return to work a month later, senators
said.
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The FAA’s long-term operating authority expired in 2007. Since
then, Congress has been unable to agree on a long-term funding
plan. The agency has continued to operate under a series of 20
short-term extensions.
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The latest extension expired at midnight on July 22 after Senate
Democrats rejected a temporary extension bill passed by the House
that contained the subsidy cuts. Senate Republicans blocked a
Democratic extension that didn’t include cuts.
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The lost ticket tax revenue is costing the government an estimated
$200 million a week. The FAA has furloughed nearly 4,000 employees
and issued stop-work orders on more than 200 construction
projects.
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Air traffic controllers have remained on the job. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood has vowed that safety won’t be compromised and
travelers won’t be inconvenienced
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Democrats say the subsidies fight is actually a ploy to get them to
accept a GOP labor provision in a separate, long-term FAA funding
bill passed by the House. Republicans deny that’s the
case.
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“Senate Democrats are also arguing that the House-passed extension
is about a labor provision, but the fact is there is no labor
provision in the extension,” Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, told
colleagues in a letter last week.
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Three times in the last 10 days, senators’ efforts to pass a bill
to end the shutdown without making air service subsidy cuts have
been blocked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Each time, Hatch has
focused his remarks on the labor provision.
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“I’ve been asked by our leadership to make these objections,” Hatch
explained Monday night. “What is important here – and it’s not some
itty-bitty little thing – is that you have labor regulators out of
control.”
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To end the shutdown, he said, the Senate must agree to the House’s
labor provision. Then, the shutdown “would be solved in a
nanosecond,” he said.
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The labor provision would 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.
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Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of
precedent to favor labor unions. Democrats and union officials say
the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same
democratic rules required for unionizing all other
companies.
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The White House warned in March that President Barack Obama would
veto an FAA bill containing the labor provision.
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