Jay Rockefeller: “last week I came to the Senate floor to ask unanimous consent to pass something called--a very easy thing--a clean…”

“last week I came to the Senate floor to ask unanimous consent to pass something called--a very easy thing--a clean extension of the FAA bill, something the Senate has done 20 times. This is the 21st time--4 years waiting to pass a reauthorization bill. But for the first time in these 4 years, the Republicans objected to this extraordinarily routine request. Shortly, I will renew my request to pass our 21st short-term extension of the FAA. But before I do, I want to highlight the very painful consequences of failing to pass this bill, which we can only do by getting a clean extension. By objecting to my request last week, Republican Senators made sure that 4,000 hard-working FAA employees were furloughed already. Hundreds of critical airport safety capacity air traffic control projects were brought to a halt. Payments were stopped to hundreds of small businesses dependent upon reimbursement from the FAA for their work. The Federal Government is being forced to forego almost $30 million a day in aviation tax revenue that is critical, obviously, to supporting our overall airport infrastructure program. The introduction of the newest Boeing aircraft is being delayed because the FAA cannot certify that the planes operate safely. I know in Washington we have a tendency to view these fights as purely policy disagreements that have no real impact on people.…”