BY Gabrielle Pfafflin
Rep. Steven T. Latourette (R-Ohio) directly chastised Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) for being part of a group in the Senate that is refusing to agree to a House-passed measure to extend funding to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Latourrete told reporters that the holdup is purely the fault of Senators. “The House of Representatives passed an extension of the Federal Aviation Administration on July the 20th, it has been sitting without action by the United States Senate since that moment in time,” Latourette said.
He claimed that the bill that passed the House had, “no labor provision in it…no anti-labor provision in it, there’s no poison pill in it….it does have the Coburn Essential Air Services language,” which he asserted is the heart of the conflict.
The “Essential Air Services” provision, Latourette was referring to subsidizes municipal airports to allow citizens in rural communities to have access to flight transportation. It previously received a voice approval from 87 Senators, according to Latourette. The House bill, he claimed, would limit the subsidy to municipal airports more than 90 miles from the nearest large airport, meaning about $16 million worth of cuts.
The problem stems from the cap that prevents the government from paying for airline tickets above one-thousand dollars, which some Democrats, according to Latourette, claim targets their districts. Latourette advocated that a clean extension bill pass, and the debate continue after the Congress reconvenes in early September.
“The hostage takers are not the Tea Party…The hostage takers are not the House Republicans. The hostage takers are not even in the United States House; Republican or Democrat,” he said.
Latourette then displayed enlarged pictures of Coburn and Sen. Jay Rockefeller. “Here are the two people for reasons of their own have and have had the ability to make this problem go away.”
“I asked the Senator if he would drop his hold on the bill and permit the House to remove the Coburn language from the legislation so that we could have what everyone in town is calling a clean extension,” LaTourette said. “This crisis could go away if Senator Coburn relented and agreed to have his language taken out.”