Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I have not wanted to pursue this issue, because the debt ceiling issue has absorbed all of the air in the room and in…”

“I have not wanted to pursue this issue, because the debt ceiling issue has absorbed all of the air in the room and in the United States, as it should; it is a huge priority. But I have to set the record straight a little bit about how this came about. First, I agree with the House position. I would reverse the NMB decision because I think it is wrong. However, what happened here is that, after 20 extensions of the FAA bill because of disagreements on several issues, the House decided to put this one--well, actually, to be honest, the House didn't even bring up NMB; they put another issue on the extension language, and it is the Essential Air Service language, which we have been trying to negotiate but have not yet come to a full agreement on among all of the parties. It is really the NMB issue that is causing the House to shut down the FAA. So the entire FAA--not the air traffic controllers, thank goodness but 3,492 employees of the FAA have been shut down, and this affects 35 States. They are on furlough without pay, through no fault of their own. And interestingly, airports that were in the midst of building runways or adding to their infrastructure or repairing their infrastructure also have had work stoppages because of the House action. The Associated General Contractors of America has estimated that 70,000 construction and related jobs are at risk because the House put an Essential Air Service amendment on a clean extension of the FAA. Mr.…”