After lengthy discussion over steadily mounting airport delays, the Senate agreed Thursday night to grant the secretary of transportation financial flexibility, in efforts to get schedules back on track.
Before Senators went to recess for a week long break, they passed the legislation unanimously that will let about $253 million be moved from the Transportation Department to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The bill, introduced by Senator Amy Klobuchar and John Hoeven, will also raise the Transportation Department's ability to cut the FAA's furloughs of 47,000 mostly air-traffic control employees-the FAA will have more liberty to transfer funds between accounts.
This bill should be sufficient to end more furloughs and keep the air traffic control system running at a tolerable speed, reports the New York Times.
Senator Susan Collins told the Times she was satisfied with the outcome, giving an upbeat response at the end of the vote.
"I am so happy that we were able to work together across the aisle in a bipartisan way to solve this problem, she said. "It's nice to know when we work together we really can solve problems."
By Thursday, the FAA reported that the furloughs were responsible for more than 863 delays as a result of short staffing in the radar rooms that work with flights going in and out of New York, Cleveland, Jacksonville and Los Angeles. There were more than 2,132 further delays due to weather.
The Senate agreed that the public should suffer no more, and though the budget would prove difficult to allocate funds equally, Amy Klobuchar said it was a necessary move.
"At some point, we have to admit the best thing is to find another $2 trillion in debt reduction by looking at revenue, closing some loopholes and bringing down the debt with some spending cuts," she said, "But not ones like this."
The bill will go to the House of Representatives Friday for clearance.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
