Standalone FAA extension introduced in House

A standalone bill to extend federal aviation funding until March 2016 has been introduced in the House. 

The measure, introduced on Friday by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), is an effort to prevent an interruption in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) funding midweek after an earlier Senate effort failed last week. 

The Senate had included a six-month extension of the FAA’s funding, which is set to expire Sept. 30, in a bill to prevent a government shutdown on Oct. 1, but the language was dropped from the spending bill amid partisan squabbling over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. 

{mosads}The new House measure from Shuster, known as the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2015 (H.R. 3614), comes just days before the scheduled expiration of federal aviation funding. 

The FAA’s previous appropriations measure, which includes funding for air traffic controllers, is set to expire on Thursday, along with funding for most federal government functions. 

The previous Senate bill to avert a government shutdown contained language that would extend the FAA’s funding until March 31, 2016 — like Shuster’s standalone House measure does. Democrats and a handful of Republicans opposed the measure that would have extended the funding in the Senate because it would have transferred money that normally goes to Planned Parenthood to other community health providers. 

Lawmakers had been expected to roll the temporary extension for the FAA into the broader measure to prevent a government shutdown, because Congress is still mired in debate about a separate long-term surface transportation funding bill.  

The FAA deadline has flown under the radar for most of the year as lawmakers have focused on the highway funding measure, which is now set to expire Oct. 29. 

The FAA has before been at the center of budget battles in Washington. The agency’s last funding measure, in 2012, was passed following a string of more than 20 temporary extensions that resulted in a partial shutdown of the agency in 2011. 

The agency’s funding was also cut in the 2013 sequester, resulting in air traffic controller furloughs and flight delays, before Congress passed a quick fix to restore the spending.