The U.S. House of Representatives started its six-week recess last week without voting on the 21st Century AIRR Act—the bill that would reauthorize funding for the FAA and spin air traffic control (ATC) services into a non-government, non-profit entity, usually referred to as “privatization.”  
 
A vote was most likely not taken because there was not enough support for the bill due to pressures from the general aviation community, which strongly opposes ATC privatization.
 
Although the Senate is still in session until Aug. 11, the Senate version of the bill is having trouble getting the necessary votes as well. While the Senate bill makes no mention of ATC privatization, there is a provision that would loosen the 1,500-hour requirement to obtain an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certificate. The 1,500-hour rule was instituted after the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, N.Y., in February 2009.
 
Critics of the provision say loosening the 1,500-hour rule would compromise safety, while proponents say it is a small change necessary to alleviate the pilot shortage caused by the 1,500-hour rule.
 
Even if the Senate manages to pass its bill before leaving on Aug.11, this leaves practically no time for the House to pass its legislation, and then have both bills reconciled before FAA authorization expires on Sept. 30. This virtually assures another short-term FAA extension. An extension could reauthorize the FAA anywhere from a month to a year.

NAAA successfully worked with congressional staff to exempt ag aviators from aviation user fees and prevented communication infrastructure interests from being completely exempted from tower marking statutes that NAAA successfully lobbied to have included in last year’s FAA extension bill. Provisions in both the House and Senate versions do allow communication infrastructure interests to either mark or log their towers in a database, but unless/until a reauthorization bill is enacted the FAA must issue a rulemaking soon requiring them to do both.
 
The first four weeks of September will be critical in determining what goes into a short-term reauthorization. NAAA will keep members apprised of how FAA reauthorization proceeds and how any changes will affect their operations.