NATCA Bookshelf

NIW Today | 37 continued on next page ISSUE For years, the FAA has faced an unstable, unpredictable funding stream with interruptions that have negatively affected all aspects of the Agency. NATCA believes that this is the most serious challenge facing the FAA and the NAS today. The recent 35-day government shutdown is just the latest, and most severe, example of how stop-and-go funding adversely affects NATCA members and the NAS. BACKGROUND: FAA AUTHORIZATION VS. APPROPRIATIONS In their most simple definitions: FAA authorization provides instruction on what the Agency must do and identifies the programs on which it is allowed to spend federal funds. Appropriations pays for those authorized programs and activities. Additionally, the FAA authorization bill establishes the rules and lays out the details for the programs, while the appropriations bill provides the actual funding to execute the programs. When there is a lapse in appropriations, the FAA is not authorized to spend money, so many programs and activities shut down. When there is a lapse in authorization, the FAA shuts down. FAA Authorization On Oct. 5, 2018, the President signed H.R. 302, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, into law. This bill passed both chambers of Congress with resounding bipartisan support. It authorizes the FAA to continue operations and establishes, continues, or modifies FAA programs, activities, and policy priorities through fiscal year (FY) 2023. It also authorizes the collection of taxes into and expenditure of funds from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. There were five short-term extensions in the three years between the expiration of the last long-term extension and the current authorization – H.R. 302, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. The reauthorization bill that was in effect from February 2012 through October 2015 was delayed more than five years and faced 23 short-term extensions and a partial FAA shutdown before a new authorization bill was finally signed into law. FAA Appropriations The FAA's funding stream has been negatively affected by the continued lack of regular order in the appropriations process. The last time all appropriations bills were enacted by the start of the new fiscal year was in 1996. A stand- alone Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations bill – which funds the FAA – has not been enacted since 2006. Over the past two decades, Congress has unfortunately become reliant on temporary, short-term funding measures called continuing resolutions (CRs) and, less frequently, omnibus spending packages (funding bills that combine multiple appropriations bills together), or some combination of the two, to fund the government. On March 23, 2018, Congress avoided its third federal government shutdown in two months when it passed an omnibus spending package that funded the government through Sept. 30, 2018. An extension of FAA authorization until Sept. 30, 2018 was attached to the omnibus. Prior to that, Congress was on its fifth consecutive CR. Following the end of FY 2018, there were two additional CRs, one through Dec. 7 and another through Dec. 21. Upon the expiration of the second CR, the government, including FAA, went into a partial shutdown. The 35-day shutdown ended with the passage of a CR on Jan. 25, 2019. Another shutdown was averted when an omnibus spending package was signed into law on Feb. 15. It expires on Sept. 30, 2019. The lack of a stable and predictable funding stream already has caused damage, some of which is irreversible. For example, we know that the shutdown will cost taxpayers up to $8 million in order to repeat training for controllers FULL BACKGROUND

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