Partisan dispute hits US aviation authority

Efforts to avert a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration failed on Friday amid a disagreement over a $16.5 million (Dh60.6 million) cut in subsidies to 13 rural communities, ensuring that nearly 4,000 people will be temporarily out of work and federal airline ticket taxes will be suspended. Lawmakers were unable to resolve a partisan dispute over an extension of the agency's operating authority, which expired at midnight Friday. The subsidy cut was included by Republicans in a House bill extending operating authority for the FAA, which has a $16 billion budget. Senate Democrats refused to accept the House bill with the cuts, and Republican senators refused to accept a Democratic bill without it. Lawmakers then adjourned for the weekend. But underlying the dispute on rural air service subsidies was a standoff between the GOP-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate over a provision in long-term funding legislation for the FAA that would make it more difficult for airline and railroad workers to unionise. Obama administration officials have said the shutdown will not affect air safety. Air traffic controllers will remain on the job. But airlines will lose the authority to collect about $200 million a week in ticket taxes that go into a trust fund that pays for FAA programmes. FAA employees whose jobs are paid for with trust fund money will be furloughed, including nearly 1,000 workers at the agency's headquarters in Washington, 647 workers at FAA's technology and research centre in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and 124 workers at the agency's training centre in Oklahoma City. From / Gulf News