Chides Speaker Boehner For Not Appointing Conferees On FAA Bill

Senate Commerce Committee Chair John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) agree on one thing ... conference committees are at least sometimes a useful tool. But apparently not always.

Rockefeller (pictured, left)  used Boehners' (pictured, right) recent call for the appointment of conferees on the payroll tax bill working its way through the legislature to remind the speaker that the Senate is still waiting for the House to name members of a conference committee on the FAA funding bill.

In a statement posted on the Commerce Committee website, Rockefeller says "Although I think the smart thing for the House to do is vote for the bipartisan payroll extension approved by 90 percent of the Senate on Saturday, I am at least pleased that Speaker Boehner has embraced the conference concept.

"I have been pressing my colleagues in the House to appoint conferees on the FAA bill for nearly 10 months.  They have repeatedly refused, instead preferring to shut down the entire FAA system and make do with stopgap short-term funding extensions.

"If the House leadership believes that conference committees are now appropriate, I hope they will move toward a conference on FAA as well, since the current extension expires next month."

The two sides have been stalemated over the most recent version of the FAA reauthorization bill largely over a change in union voting rules in the House version. The current rules as set by the National Mediation Board were recently upheld by a D.C. Court of Appeals.

The current continuing resolution funding the FAA expires on January 31st. Politico reports that House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) said he hopes that the FAA bill can be passed by the end of January, but "I don't set the floor schedule." The House reportedly has only six legislative days planned for the entire month of January.

FMI: http://rockefeller.senate.gov, www.speaker.gov