FAA Funding Moves Forward; Workers Return

August 4, 2011 – The House and the Senate reached a compromise to end the partial shutdown of the FAA, removing about 4,000 FAA employees off  furlough and allowing thousands of laid-off airport construction workers to return to their jobs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the news of the compromise. “This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain.  But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that,” Reid said in a written statement.

The FAA was partially shut down on July 23 after the Republican-led House and the Democrat-led Senate failed to reach a compromise to continue the agency’s funding. On Friday the Senate will pass the temporary funding bill that was passed by the House two weeks ago.

The government has already experienced a large loss in revenue with partial shutdown of the FAA - about $30 million a day in uncollected airline ticket taxes. If the issue was not resolved before Congress returned from its summer recess in September, total loss in revenue would have reached nearly $1.2 billion.

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