FAA chief to testify on aviation funding bill

Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta is scheduled to testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee next week about the agency’s funding, which is scheduled to expire in September. 

Lawmakers are currently embroiled in a standoff over the Department of Homeland Security’s funding, and they’re facing a May deadline for renewing federal highway spending, but the FAA’s appropriation measure is also scheduled to expire on Sept. 30. 

Huerta will testify on Tuesday before lawmakers “on reauthorization of the agency and ensuring a modern U.S. aviation system,” according to the Transportation Committee. 

 {mosads}”The current FAA law expires at the end of September, and a new authorization is one of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s highest priorities this year,” the committee said about Tuesday’s hearing. “Administrator Huerta, the only scheduled witness for next week’s hearing, will provide the FAA’s perspectives on reauthorization.” 

The last FAA appropriations bill that was passed by Congress was a $63 billion funding bill that was approved in 2012. The measure became bogged down in a fight about labor rules for airline workers and was passed only after Congress approved more than 20 temporary extensions of a prior FAA bill. 

Lawmakers have said they are eager to avoid a repeat of the 2012 fight, which saw the FAA partially shutdown in the summer for 2011 for two weeks in a standoff that was similar to the current fight in Congress about Department of Homeland Security funding. 

Huerta has warned lawmakers the consequences of allowing the agency’s funding to expire would have on the nation’s aviation system would be dire, pointing to issues such a potential delays in the development of the NextGen satellite navigation system that the agency has been working on for years.