Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2012

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3800) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, to amend title 49, United States Code, to extend authorizations for the airport improvement program, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 3800.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to include in the Congressional Record an exchange of letters between the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure concerning H.R. 3800.

I am pleased to report that we are currently in the final negotiations of completing an FAA reauthorization bill with the Senate, with only a few open issues left to be resolved. I am confident that we will be able to complete negotiations and produce a conference report in the very near future.

However, given the congressional schedule and the limited legislative days before FAA's current authority expires, we will not be able to consider the final agreement on the conference report until February. Since current funding expires at the end of this month, it is necessary for us to pass a

clean, short-term extension of the FAA's funding and programs through February 17 at current funding levels.

This extension is a prudent precaution to ensure that the FAA is able to continue its funding and programs while negotiations are completed and the House and Senate consider the FAA conference report.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC, January 24, 2012.

Hon. John Mica,

Chairman, Committee on Transortation and Infrastructure,

Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Mica: I am writing concerning H.R. 3800, the

``Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2012'' which is

expected to be scheduled for floor consideration this week.

As you know, the Committee on Ways and Means has

jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Code. Sections 2 and 3

of this bill amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 by

extending the current Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF)

expenditure authority and the associated Federal excise taxes

to February 17, 2012. In order to expedite H.R. 3800 for

Floor consideration, the Committee will forgo action on the

bill. This is being done with the understanding that it does

not in any way prejudice the Committee with respect to the

appointment of conferees or its jurisdictional prerogatives

on this or similar legislation.

I would appreciate your response to this letter, confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 3800, and would ask

that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be

included in the Congressional Record during Floor

consideration.

Sincerely,

Dave Camp,

Chairman.

Does the gentleman have any further requests for time?

I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield such time as he may consume to our colleague from Texas, Representative Farenthold.

I yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the full Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, our colleague from the State of Florida, John Mica.

I have no further requests for time, and reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 3800, the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2012. This bill contains a clean extension of the Federal Aviation Administration's authority to spend from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund to carry out airport improvement projects at current funding levels through February 17, 2012.

Mr. Speaker, this short-term extension will hopefully provide us enough time for the House Republican leadership to finally appoint conferees to the FAA reauthorization bill, which we passed almost a year ago, work through the remaining policy issues with the other body, and send a comprehensive bill to the President.

Although this has been an unnecessarily difficult and controversial process during the first session of the 112th Congress to move the multiyear FAA reauthorization measure, I'm pleased that the House and Senate leadership recognized the importance of getting a bill completed and stepped in to help in the process.

While I will reserve judgment on a final conference report, it appears as though we are making progress, and we certainly need to avoid a repeat of the disastrous outcome that occurred this summer when the FAA was partially shut down for 2 weeks, costing taxpayers almost $400 million in lost revenue for infrastructure investment. As we move to conference, we need to enact a fair and comprehensive bill that creates jobs, furthers aviation safety, and advances our transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System.

Mr. Speaker, I support this short-term FAA extension in the interest of preventing another FAA shutdown in order to give us a few more weeks to produce a bipartisan reauthorization conference report that the President can sign into law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3800, the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2012, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we have one speaker.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), a valued member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

I yield another 1 minute to the gentlewoman.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me commend Chairman Mica and Chairman Petri for working in a bipartisan way. We've attempted to work with the other body in working on an agreement. We are very close to agreement. As I said in my statement, I reserve judgment on the final conference agreement, but I certainly want to commend our friends on the other side of the aisle for working to move this legislation forward.

With that, I urge the passage of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Illinois. This compromise only reminds me of how much I regret that he has decided to retire. He was such a valuable chair of our subcommittee and member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I can only wish him all the good fortune his extraordinarily productive years in the Congress have earned him.

But I thank both sides of the aisle for this short-term extension, short-term, I am assured, to wrap up some details. This is a bill that is really a great deal more bipartisan than it would appear. Yes, there were some tough items, as in any piece of major legislation.

I do regret the major reason for the standoff. This bill, it seems to me, could have been before us long ago but for at least one provision which could have been settled, and that was the provision in the bill that would have insisted that no-shows be counted in labor elections, the no-shows be counted as for one side or the other. And in this case, they would have been counted as a ``no'' vote against joining the union.

You know, you could argue just the opposite, that if you really were against the union, you're the ones who show up. So it seems to me that was a thumb on the scale, but you don't know how it would come out. And some kind of compromise has been reached on that. I will have to wait on that compromise. But I'm very pleased that we've moved ahead on a compromise because the President had said over and over again he was going to veto the bill if it had that provision in it. So since we knew it was going to be vetoed, it was up to us to get to a compromise much earlier and to get on to other tough issues in the bill. And I recognize that more time is needed on those issues.

One of those issues, by the way, has to do with just how much traffic we are going to tolerate at Reagan Airport, with the idea that if an individual Member from the west coast would prefer the convenience of landing at Reagan, then the whole bill should bend in that way. I ask that we consider----

So, in winding up the bill, I ask that we keep in mind the fact that a very fragile compromise has been reached to allow the three other airports in this region and the economic assumptions involved to divide up the air traffic as has been allowed.

I also want to say that when we get to these union provisions, do remember that in every society, one of the cardinal tests of whether or not you have a free society is whether there is a right to organize a union.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Petri, our chair of the Aviation Subcommittee. I see Mr. Costello, the ranking member, former chair of the subcommittee. Thank you for your work.

We're here to extend FAA for the 23rd time. The consequences of that can, I hope, be positive, that we can conclude this long overdue and very important authorization.

Members of Congress, we must authorize every program. That's part of our constitutional responsibility.

I had the privilege, when I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, to write a lot of what was in the last bill which we authored in 2003. It expired in 2007. The other side of the aisle had 4 years in which they controlled the body, 2 of which they controlled every branch of government, and were unable to pass that. They passed 17 extensions. We've had to pass--it will now be five--but we can get this done. This should be a bipartisan and must be a bicameral jobs bill.

The aviation industry in our country accounts for between 7 and 8 percent of our gross domestic national economic activity, and for us not to have passed an authorization that updates the safety, all of the programs, the next generation of air traffic control, things that are so important to have a dynamic industry, and then an area of our economy that we have led in in the world. The biggest area of exports is aviation. That's huge for jobs in this country.

So this is going to be the last extension. It's done in, again, a bipartisan effort to conclude the negotiation.

Let me say in conclusion, there are some tough issues on labor that have held us up--4 years with the Democrats, the last year with us--and I want to commend Speaker Boehner for his leadership working with the leadership of the Senate. The Speaker and his staff and others have worked day and night through the holidays and right up to now to conclude what I think is a very fair compromise. And it must be a compromise.

This is part of our business is to do the best business we can for the American people and getting this economy working and getting in place the framework for one of the most important aspects of our industry. If we want to see Americans back to work, we'll pass this legislation by the 17th of February, and then we'll come back in the next week or two, and we will pass a long-term infrastructure transportation measure, and we will and we can get Americans working.

So I ask for continued cooperation to complete this important process.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to do something that I don't particularly like to do, supporting in kicking the can down the road another time. But I'm excited about kicking the can down the road this time. We've had 23 extensions of the FAA bill, but this time, as we kick the can down the road, we actually see the end of the road.

The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has worked in a bipartisan manner to come up with a bill

that I think is going to be phenomenal once we get it out of the House and Senate conferees. It's taken some time to get us to the point where we can find the efficiencies and savings that we need and continue to provide the level of service we expect in our air transportation system in this country. My fear is we're going to come up with this bipartisan bill and it's going to get stalled again though.

As we stand here on the eve of the State of the Union address, we have the politics of a do-nothing Congress. I hope that that narrative doesn't stop this bill from moving forward as it comes up and we don't have to extend this again.

This is something we've been able to do in a bipartisan nature. Historically, transportation bills have been bipartisan. Let's not let this get stopped and have to kick the can down the road. Let's get our conferees done. Let's get this passed.

I urge everybody, my colleagues, to support this extension. Let's make it the last and get the long-term bill passed for the betterment of this country and everyone in it.