A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/645606
be closing monitoring as the process moves forward and will continue to work diligently to ensure th at the FAA is properly funded. Schedule : The House Appropriations Committee is already beginning to hold appropriations heari ngs for FY17 spending. On Wednesday, February 24, the committee will hold a hearing for the Department of Transportation (DOT) with DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx as the witness. Also, it is expected that the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THU D) Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 2 to discuss FAA funding levels, with FAA Administrator Michael Huerta as the witness. NATCA GA staff will be in attendance at both hear ings and will keep you updated. FAA Appropriation s : NATCA closely monitors the THUD appropriations legislation, which provides funding for the FAA. As a reminder, President Obama released his FY17 budget proposal recently, which proposes an increase in the FAA Operations account from $9.909 billion in FY 16 to $9.994 billion in FY17. We will keep you updated as the THUD subcommittees in the House and Senate move forward with their r espective appropriations bills. ANTI - OFFICIAL TIME EFFORTS CONTINUE : In letters addressed to 26 agency leaders, House Oversig ht and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R - UT) and Subcommittee on Governmental Operations Chairman Mark Meadows (R - NC) want to know how many government employees carry out official time functions during the workday. More specifically, the oversig ht officials want to know the names, titles and salaries of every federal employee who uses official time and if these employees work on union matters on a full - time basis. This effort stems from efforts on behalf of Rep. Hice (R - GA) who has introduced leg islation (H.R. 4392) that would require the Office of Personnel Management to submit an annual report to Congress relating to the use of official time by federal employees. Moving forward, we expect to see several harmful amendments offered to appropriatio ns bills this year that would eliminate or limit the use of official time. NATCA has successfully defeated amendments on appropriations bills in recent years that would eliminate or limit official time. As always, NATCA GA staff will closely follow the iss ue and strongly oppose any efforts to eliminate or limit official time. COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT FAA REAUTHORIZATION BILL It is important to us to continue our conversation with you on this very important issue. Here is a rundown of what we have available and all of our resources on this issue: Do You Have A Question? There's a good chance that your question has already been asked by another member and answered in our frequently - asked - questions report, located on the FAA Reauthorization page on the members side of natca.org. To access that page: please go here - http://natca.org/index.php/member - login . Once you log in and reach the members home page, click on the "FAA Reauthorization" button. If you have not yet logged on to the members side of the website, you need to u se the same username and password as those for your NATCA Portal account. If you have not been to the NATCA Portal yet, you can quickly and easily register and create the credentials you'll need to access the new members section of natca.org. Click here :