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Chairman Shuster announced that he was going to bring a bill to the House floor that did not contain the ATC so- called privatization. He stripped that provision from the bill and it passed the House overwhelmingly.
In the Senate, the FAA reauthorization bill is pending. They are working to try to bring it to the floor but the Senate calendar is very congested. So, my guess is when this article comes out the legislation will not have passed both the House and the Senate. I’m expecting FAA reauthorization will be extended from September 30th to December 31st, which would allow the lame duck Congress to take up the issue after the mid-term elections.
I think the good news on extensions is the sky doesn’t fall in. But clearly a long- term reauthorization bill provides stabil- ity, creates a North Star for us to navigate by. The so-called privatization has been a distraction to getting a long-term FAA bill. I’m hoping that we can now put that to the side and get a long-term bill passed for three, four or five years. At this point it certainly looks as if the ATC privatization has been fully vetted and rejected. So we would hope it doesn’t resurface in a lame duck session. But, obviously, we’re going to remain very vigilant. There continues to be some people speaking positively about ATC privatization. We know that if we call on our community to respond they will.
Twin & Turbine: Mid-term Con- gressional elections are a big focus in the United States. How could the outcome potentially impact business aviation?
Bolen: Over decased we have seen that although different parties can be in charge of the House or the Senate, there is no one party that is consistently better or worse for business aviation. We have been able to find champions on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers that have been important at helping us get our mes- sage out. Sometimes those members are pilots, and that can be helpful.
Business aviation is not a partisan issue; it’s an awareness issue. So, what we’ve been doing for the past several years is try to build a strong general aviation caucus in both the House and the Senate that helps us identify those people who un- derstand our industry and are inclined to support it. Whatever the outcome of the elections are, we will be reaching out to our community asking them to help us build strong GA caucuses. We’ll be rely- ing on champions to help rally support and do some of the member-to-member outreach. But obviously elections have consequences so we’ll see what changes,
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10 • TWIN & TURBINE
October 2018