[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12816-12817]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Minnesota 
being willing to stay in the chair for a few more minutes before I have 
to preside so I can take this time to express my concern about what has 
happened with the failure to reauthorize the Federal Aviation 
Administration.
  The authorization for that administration has expired, and it has led 
to a partial shutdown of that agency and to 4,000 workers being placed 
on unpaid furlough. A number of those workers are from New Hampshire. 
While I know all of us here are glad we were able to come together to 
reach a bipartisan agreement on raising the debt ceiling and avoiding a 
financial crisis, I am deeply disappointed that bipartisanship has 
failed us when it comes to reauthorizing the FAA.
  I understand the House may head home for recess today and for the 
rest of August, stranding 4,000 FAA workers and as many as 70,000--that 
is right, 70,000--airport construction workers around the country who 
are out of work until we can get an agreement. So let me review for a 
minute how we got here.
  Since the FAA's authorization expired in 2007, Congress has passed 20 
short-term extensions of the FAA. All of those bills, every single one 
of them, were clean bills intended to keep the FAA running while 
Congress decided how to deal with the complicated policy issues of a 
long-term reauthorization. Unfortunately, the 21st time around--that is 
the time that we are

[[Page 12817]]

in--the House decided it was no longer important to keep the FAA 
operating, and 4,000 people are out of work while the House of 
Representatives may head home for recess.
  I appreciate that there are some significant differences between the 
two long-term FAA authorization bills passed by the House and the 
Senate, the most controversial of which centered around the ruling by 
the National Mediation Board on unionization rules. But that is why 
Chairman Rockefeller and Ranking Member Hutchison appointed Members to 
a conference committee where the House and Senate could work out our 
policy differences. So far, the House has refused to appoint conferees. 
Instead, they have decided to stop negotiating and, unfortunately, to 
play politics with 4,000 FAA workers and their families.
  Right now the FAA has been shut down for 11 days and as long as that 
shutdown continues, the government will continue to lose $200 million a 
week, about $30 million a day, that would pay for airport maintenance 
and safety and for the replacement of our country's outdated air 
traffic control system. If the shutdown continues through the August 
recess, we are going to lose over $1 billion in revenue that could be 
used to upgrade our air transportation system. That is waste of the 
worst kind, and it makes our deficit problems worse at a time when 
everybody says they are so focused on the deficits.
  Every day the shutdown continues has a very real, very painful impact 
on people all around the country who have been furloughed. I hope the 
House, in leaving for recess, has left open the opportunity to continue 
to address this dispute and resolve it in a way that will bring 
everybody back to work.
  The FAA has issued stop-work orders for 241 airport construction 
projects worth nearly $11 billion that support 70,000 jobs. Again, 
these are real people who are being forced to make real sacrifices.
  In my State of New Hampshire, a $16 million project to rebuild the 
runway of Boire Field in Nashua will be delayed if we don't pass an 
extension. Boire Field is the busiest general aviation airport in New 
England, and breaking ground this fall on the runway reconstruction 
project would have created 50 jobs. Instead, because of this delay, 
construction likely won't begin until spring and those 50 people are 
going to have to wait, something that shouldn't have to happen. The 
tragedy is they won't have jobs, not because they don't have the skills 
or that the project isn't needed but because the House is playing 
politics with the FAA. Forty-two employees at the FAA's air traffic 
control center in Nashua have been furloughed and this shutdown is 
taking a terrible toll on them. I want to tell you about one, Steve 
Finnerty from Bedford.
  I talked to Steve earlier today. He is a civil engineer and he has 
worked for the FAA for the last 15 years. He is the sole breadwinner 
for his family of five. He has a young daughter and a pair of 1-year-
old twins who are struggling with medical issues. He has already lost 
nearly 2 weeks of pay, and he is not sure that he is going to get that 
pay back even when he does go back to work. He is concerned, 
understandably, about how he is going to pay his mortgage and his 
doctor bills and the grocery bills and all the other needs his family 
has. Now he is facing the possibility of an entire month without pay.
  There are thousands of people all across the country who are stuck in 
the same circumstance who want to get back to work, who we need to get 
back to work. We need them to get back to work so they can pay their 
mortgages and their children's college tuitions and their medical 
bills. We need them to get back to work so they can continue to build a 
GPS-based air traffic control system like every other industrialized 
country has. We need to get this economy moving again. That means we 
need to be serious about our responsibilities here in Washington. Let's 
pass a clean extension of the FAA. Let's get these people back to work, 
and let's go about the business of rebuilding a modern air traffic 
control system like we should have in the United States.
  I yield the floor, and I would suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant parliamentarian proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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