AOPA, coalition urge lawmakers to avoid government shutdown
Government funding runs out September 30
AOPA, along with 50 members of the Modern Skies Coalition, urged lawmakers to avoid a government shutdown beginning at midnight Eastern time on October 1.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the coalition underscored the negative impacts a shutdown would have across the country and the aviation industry.
The coalition continued, “Although air traffic controllers, technicians, and other exempted aviation safety professionals continue to work without pay during a shutdown, many other FAA employees who support them are furloughed.”
The Modern Skies Coalition formed earlier this year when more than 50 companies and organizations across the aviation industry came together in a unified push to modernize the existing air traffic control system and expand hiring and training of controllers.
Since then, Congress has approved $12.5 billion toward ATC modernization efforts. An additional $19 billion is expected to be needed to complete the work. But in the letter, the coalition wrote that a shutdown “would jeopardize the important progress that we all have made on these efforts thus far.”
“With 45,000 flights and nearly three million people taking to the skies every day, we can’t stop the progress we are making on modernizing our nation’s air traffic control system, which is desperately needed,” said AOPA President Darren Pleasance.
Separately, the coalition has previously called for the FAA to be exempt from the effects of government shutdowns by temporarily funding the agency directly through the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, which already funds a significant portion of the agency’s budget. Congress has not advanced bills that have been introduced to authorize that change.
In letters to lawmakers in April and August, the coalition called for budget reforms to give the FAA stability for long-term projects, such as the ongoing ATC modernization efforts.
