The House passed a $105 billion aviation bill on Wednesday just days ahead of its expiration, putting an end to a monthslong fight over whether to increase the number of flights at the nation’s busiest runway.
Lawmakers voted 387-26 to renew the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act for another five years, overcoming the two-thirds majority threshold needed to pass the House. The legislation was brought to the floor under a suspension of rules, raising the minimum vote threshold needed in order to expedite its passage.
The vote comes just days after the measure passed the Senate following a dayslong impasse caused by senators who opposed a provision that would add 10 slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, arguing it would cause delays and become a risk to public safety.
The renewal comes as good news to more than 3,000 federal employees who would have been furloughed had the measure expired after the deadline of midnight on Friday. The FAA was initially scheduled to expire last week, but lawmakers passed a temporary extension last week to buy time to hammer out a final deal.
The bill allocates roughly $66.7 billion to go toward FAA operations, such as safety programs and the hiring of air traffic controllers, as well as another $17.8 billion for related facilities and equipment.
The bill would also include measures that would prohibit additional fees for families to select connecting seats in the same rows. It would also require clear standards for refunds and reimbursement when flights are delayed or canceled.
However, the most contentious provision included in the bill is to expand the number of slots at DCA, with some House Republicans reiterating their Senate counterparts’ concerns.
“Every member would love a direct flight home to their local airport,” Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) told the Washington Examiner. “But if you tell them that A) they might not be getting that direct flight anyway, B) they might be losing direct flights to nearby airports as a result of the shifting around and see their safety out of Reagan might be diminishing and their potential for delays might be increasing — I do get kind of a concerned reaction from most of my colleagues.”
But, he added, there was not an overwhelming concern that would “lead them to vote against the bill because they recognize that it authorizes such important programs.”
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“You can’t let the perfect in this case be the enemy of the good,” Cline said. “And reauthorizing these programs and keeping planes in the sky is a necessary goal for this legislation to pass.”
The legislation now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature, which is required to take effect.