Congress has given itself a little more time to reach an agreement on legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, but families of those killed in a regional jet crash near Buffalo in 2009 aren’t taking a breather.

During the July Fourth recess, family members of the Colgan Air crash victims fanned out across West Virginia and Minnesota — the home states of the House and Senate transportation chairmen — to press for quick enactment of the reauthorization bill (HR 1586).

Both House- and Senate-passed versions of the bill include provisions designed to strengthen aviation safety. Many of these — including increased hours for pilot training — stem directly from the Colgan Air crash.

Each chamber has passed a version of a long-term reauthorization. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., who leads the House Transportation and Infrastructure panel, have said their goal is to reconcile the bills before the current extension (PL 111-197), enacted just before the recess, expires Aug. 1. Although conferees have yet to be named, informal negotiations have begun.

John L. Mica of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said that the most pressure on lawmakers to complete a conference is now coming from the Colgan families.

“One of the biggest pressures, and rightfully so, is the Buffalo interest,” Mica said. “They’ve been pushing for commuter air safety legislation since the crash, and now it’s stuck.”

Lawmakers have taken a drubbing in Buffalo’s local press over the delay. In a May 23 editorial, the Buffalo News blamed the delay on one of the conference’s thorniest outstanding issues: a change to labor law that would affect FedEx’s ground fleet workforce, placing it under the same labor laws as rival UPS.

The provision — inserted into the House bill by Oberstar but opposed by Tennessee’s Republican senators, who are backing Nashville-based FedEx — remains one of the main obstacles to an agreement.

“This FAA bill is just too important to jeopardize with a labor issue that really affects only two companies,” the editorial read.

Oberstar fired back by calling a news conference and writing his own opinion piece in the Buffalo paper, saying he agreed that the delay was galling, but that “if anything threatens this legislation, it is the willingness of FedEx to kill the entire bill rather than lose a fight.”

Oberstar said in an interview that he would characterize the involvement of the Colgan Air families as “support” more than “pressure.” “Pressure, yes — in support of our bill,” he said. “We want them to get on the Senate, and they have been.”

Oberstar said Senate negotiators’ last offer on pilot training language was mostly the airline industry’s line. “They had far less hours, far fewer hours of training for pilot training,” Oberstar said. “Way, way lower. And that’s not acceptable.”

Jim Berard, Oberstar’s spokesman, said later that his office helped the families organize their events in Minnesota over the recess, and that they would be expressing their support for Oberstar and moving the bill.

“They don’t have a dog in the FedEx fight,” Berard said. “But they are going to say there’s a need to move this bill forward.”

 

The article by Kathryn A. Wolfe, CQ Staff originally appeared in the CQ Today Online News on July 9, 2010.