The Senate moved last night to end the airport delays caused by furloughing air traffic controllers.
The Hill (“Senate passes measure to end airport delays“):
The Senate passed a bill on Thursday evening to end air traffic controller furloughs caused by the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester that have been blamed for mounting flight delays across the country.
The passage of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), capped a day of scrambling that saw lawmakers alternate between trying to pass a quick legislative fix for the air traffic controllers’ furloughs and point fingers at each other for the flight delays they caused.
Collins’ bill, which was passed by unanimous consent on Thursday evening, gives the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) more flexibility to keep essential workers on the job.
[…]
Collins’s version of the bill to end the air traffic controllers’ furlough allows the FAA to transfer airport improvement funds to eliminate the agency’s budget shortfall.
[…]
Lawmakers in the House said prior to Senate’s vote Thursday evening that they would consider bills to stop the furloughs, even as they questioned the necessity of a legislative fix.
“I continue to believe that the FAA has ability … without passing a law to move money around within that organization to not have these furloughs occurring to the people that provide safety to the flying public,” House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said.
“We’re willing to look at what the Senate is going to propose, but I believe we don’t need to pass legislation,” Shuster continued.
The White House said on Wednesday that President Obama would be “open” to considering legislation specifically addressing the air traffic controller furloughs.
The lurch toward a legislative fix to the mounting flight delays came as airlines reported Thursday that 16,000 people had sent comments to Congress and the Obama administration calling for a resolution to the air traffic controller furloughs.
Both the sequester itself and the administration’s handling of it are stupid political stunts. To the extent cutting back government spending makes sense, it should be targeted based on necessity and rationality rather than across-the-board. But it was obvious from the beginning that furloughing controllers was done precisely to maximize inconvenience to the public. WSJ observes,
The Federal Aviation Administration claims the sequester spending cuts are forcing it to delay some 6,700 flights a day, but rarely has a bureaucracy taken such joy in inconveniencing the public.
Though the FAA says it is strapped for cash, the air traffic control agency managed to find the dollars to update its interactive “command center” tool on its website so passengers can check if their airports are behind schedule due to what it calls sequester-related “staffing” problems. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn noticed this rare case of FAA technological entrepreneurship and fired off a letter Wednesday protesting what he called the agency’s “full blown media rollout” to hype the flight delays.
That had zero impact on FAA bosses, who were on Capitol Hill rationalizing their dereliction. But after Mr. Coburn published his letter on his website, FAA regional employees wrote to blow the whistle on their bosses. As one email put it, “the FAA management has stated in meetings that they need to make the furloughs as hard as possible for the public so that they understand how serious it is.”
It’s working in the sense that it has the traveling public outraged. But, rather than having the intended reaction—a backlash against the sequester and a recognition that the federal government provides essential services—it’s being seen for what it is.
