Short-term FAA bill to get House vote as clock ticks down

The House is expected to vote on a short-term extension of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under an expedited process later this week, leaving little room for error before the agency’s legal authority expires next week.

Under debate guidelines for a separate bill, the House Rules Committee approved a resolution on Tuesday that also would permit lawmakers to consider FAA legislation under a suspension of the rules on either Thursday or Friday.

{mosads}The measure would need a two-thirds majority for passage, meaning the legislation can afford few defections and delays as the House works to tee up a vote for the Senate next week. Current legal authority for FAA programs expires on July 15 — the last day before lawmakers are scheduled to break for the summer recess.

Final details on the bill could be released sometime today, according to House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.)

The legislation is expected to green-light FAA programs through September of next year and contains a number of permanent policy add-ons.

“Leadership’s got to schedule a floor vote, but we’re real close,” Shuster told The Hill on Tuesday evening after votes. “Hopefully tomorrow we’ll have some news.”

House lawmakers had tussled over a long-term version of the bill that contained a controversial proposal to separate the nation’s air traffic control system from the FAA, while the Senate’s version avoided a collision over renewable energy tax extenders that Democrats were trying to attach to the bill.

The new extension is not expected to contain any air traffic control reform, and committee leaders have sounded confident that the patch would not attract any energy tax riders when it gets kicked over to the Senate.

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Wednesday that there were efforts on both sides of the aisle and Capitol to attach tax extenders to the latest FAA bill, but said they have “been tamped down in the interest of trying to get this done before the deadline.”

Thune indicated that the measure will contain a number of provisions to beef up airport security, including language to increase the presence of bomb-sniffing dogs, require stronger vetting of airport employees and expand enrollment in the PreCheck program.

“We got a lot of policy in there,” Thune said Wednesday.

David McCabe contributed to this report.