Fonte: Senato passare affare FAA a fine chiusura parziale

Washington (CNN) — The Senate is expected to pass legislation on Friday that restores funding to the Federal Aviation Administration and puts tens of thousands of people back to work.

Majority Leader Harry Reid will call for “unanimous consent” to pass the measure, which was approved by the House, a Senate Democratic leadership aide told CNN.

A senator requests unanimous consent to set aside procedural rules and hasten proceedings. Only two senators need to be present. If there are no objections to the bill in the brief session, the legislation will pass.

House members and senators left for their traditional August recess this week without the approval of a short-term funding extension for the FAA.

That failure that prompted Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to get on the airwaves and cajole lawmakers to come back from their break, approve the legislation, and get out-of-work people back on the job.

Congressional leaders reached a deal Thursday to temporarily resume funding for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The agreement ends an impasse that has resulted in the furlough of roughly 4,000 aviation workers, as well as tens of thousands of additional layoffs in the construction industry and elsewhere because activity was halted on 200 airport construction projects.

But the deal does not address a key issue that helped spur the dispute — a recent National Mediation Board decision backed by Democrats that makes it easier for airline employees to unionize.

President Barack Obama hailed the agreement.

“We can’t afford to let politics in Washington hamper our recovery, so this is an important step forward,” Obama said in a statement.

For workers facing the possibility of lost wages for weeks to come, news of the breakthrough evoked an emotional response. Evelyn Martinez, an FAA inspector, cried when she learned of the deal.

“They’re out of relief,” Martinez said of her tears, adding that while her post-graduate education taught her how government works, “what we are experiencing is outside of any textbook.”

With Congress on recess until September, the possibility of workers being idled for weeks at the height of the construction season further angered a public frustrated by what it considers unnecessary political squabbling in Washington.

Since authorization for FAA funding expired in late July, the agency has been unable to collect federal taxes on airline tickets — leading to a revenue loss of approximately $30 million a day. If the dispute continued until Congress returned from its summer recess in September, the federal government would have been out more than $1 billion in revenue.

Reid had been in talks since Thursday with House Speaker John Boehner and the Obama administration about how to resolve the FAA funding impasse, the Senate Democratic leadership aide said.

“This is a tremendous victory for American workers everywhere,” LaHood said in a statement. “From construction workers to our FAA employees, they will have the security of knowing they are going to go back to work and get a paycheck — and that’s what we’ve been fighting for.”

Reid, D-Nevada, noted that the agreement “does not resolve the important differences that still remain.”

“But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that,” Reid’s statement said.

LaHood had urged members of Congress to return to Washington from their summer break and, at a minimum, pass a temporary funding measure allowing the FAA and other workers to return to their jobs.

The Democratic-led Senate went on its summer recess Tuesday without approving what would have been the 21st short-term funding extension for the FAA. The Republican-led House previously passed a short-term extension, but included some changes opposed by Democrats.

The dispute over the extension involves language in the House proposal that would reduce or kill subsidies to rural airports, specifically targeting some in Nevada, Montana and New Mexico — three states with influential Democratic senators.

As part of Thursday’s agreement, LaHood will notify congressional leaders that he has the authority to grant waivers to affected community airports, which would exempt them from the subsidy cuts, according to the Senate Democratic leadership aide.

While no specific exemptions are required as part of the deal, the authority held by LaHood gives Democrats the assurance that the disputed language they opposed can be overridden, the aide noted.

A larger dispute behind the scenes also was a cause for the inaction, and the deal announced Thursday does not address it.

Republicans oppose the Democratic-backed mediation board decision that makes unionization easier.

The board’s ruling made passage of a vote to unionize dependent on getting more than 50% support of those voting. Per esempio, if a company has 1,000 workers but only 200 take part in the vote to unionize, the rule change would mean only 101 “sì” votes were needed for it to pass.

Under old rules, oltre 50% of all workers eligible to vote — or in this example 501 “sì” utili — would have been required for it to pass. Workers who didn’t cast ballots were counted as having voted “no,” making it more difficult for supporters to succeed.

As the dispute dragged on, numerous FAA employees were being forced to dig into personal savings, prioritize their bills, and cut back on expenses in order to avoid financial devastation.

“We’re pretty much going to burn through all of our savings within a month and … now we’re working on programs out there to give us no-interest loans,” said Mark DePlasco, one of the furloughed employees. “I don’t think any of us can even fathom going without a paycheck for another month and a half or even longer.”

Fonte: CNN