Senators jetted out of Washington last week without advancing a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, giving them just 17 legislative days to pass a measure before the agency’s funding authority expires at the end of September.
Heated negotiations over pilot training have already deadlocked senators, in turn delaying discussions between the two chambers to reconcile differences between their versions of the measure. And with a September calendar already crowded with other authorization and funding deadlines, it seems likely Congress will have to enact an extension for the aviation agency’s funding authority before the fiscal year ends.
“I still hope we’ll get a markup early in September,” Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in an interview. “We’ll see.”
