Wed, Dec 21, 2011
Chides Speaker Boehner For Not Appointing Conferees On FAA
Bill
Senate Commerce Committee Chair John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV)
and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) agree on one thing ...
conference committees are at least sometimes a useful tool. But
apparently not always.
Rockefeller (pictured, left) used Boehners' (pictured,
right) recent call for the appointment of conferees on the payroll
tax bill working its way through the legislature to remind the
speaker that the Senate is still waiting for the House to name
members of a conference committee on the FAA funding bill.
In a statement posted on the Commerce Committee website,
Rockefeller says "Although I think the smart thing for the House to
do is vote for the bipartisan payroll extension approved by 90
percent of the Senate on Saturday, I am at least pleased that
Speaker Boehner has embraced the conference concept.
"I have been pressing my colleagues in the House to appoint
conferees on the FAA bill for nearly 10 months. They have
repeatedly refused, instead preferring to shut down the entire FAA
system and make do with stopgap short-term funding extensions.
"If the House leadership believes that conference committees are
now appropriate, I hope they will move toward a conference on FAA
as well, since the current extension expires next month."
The two sides have been stalemated over the most recent version
of the FAA reauthorization bill largely over a change in union
voting rules in the House version. The current rules as set by the
National Mediation Board were recently upheld by a D.C. Court of
Appeals.
The current continuing resolution funding the FAA expires on
January 31st. Politico reports that House Transportation Committee
Chair John Mica (R-FL) said he hopes that the FAA bill can be
passed by the end of January, but "I don't set the floor schedule."
The House reportedly has only six legislative days planned for the
entire month of January.
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