John Mica: “Thank you for yielding. Madam Speaker and my colleagues, if everyone isn't totally confused by what's going on with the…”

“Thank you for yielding. Madam Speaker and my colleagues, if everyone isn't totally confused by what's going on with the FAA legislation, it will be a miracle, but let me just try to take, for a moment, Madam Speaker and my colleagues, a little time to explain to Members and staff and you, Madam Speaker, where we are and how we got here. Now, what we are considering now is not a new FAA bill but the extension of the old FAA bill. In fact, the FAA bill, when I was chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee in 2003, in May of that year, we introduced a bill that became law 6 months later and was signed by the President the end of 2003. That bill has been in effect, that authorization which authorizes all the policy, all the projects for FAA, has been in effect, and it expired in September of 2007. Since September of 2007, we have not had a new FAA bill. What we have done is a series of extensions of the 2003-passed bill. Now, last week, we were here doing the 12th extension of the FAA bill, and we passed that measure and we sent it over to the other body. The other body took that legislation and they passed it, but a little mistake was made, I understand, in the formula for AIP funding, so that's why we are back here the 13th time passing an extension of a bill that expired in 2007.”