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Mr. CAPUANO. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1079, the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2011.
As you heard, this is the 18th short-term extension for FAA programs. With the enactment of a long-term FAA reauthorization in sight, as the chairman has just mentioned--and we all look forward to that--I want to echo my colleague's hopes that this will be the last short-term extension. I know, if we have to have one, we'll probably do one, but we all hope that it's the last one we do.
Without the enactment of this bill, the FAA's funding, programs, and expenditure authority would lapse on March 31. This clean and straightforward extension will keep the FAA operating at current funding levels for another 2 months, through May 31. It will give Congress time to work out the long-term reauthorization. Yet I want to be clear: While I support this short-term extension bill, I have serious concerns about H.R. 658, the long-term FAA reauthorization bill, which I expect the House may try to take up this week.
In fiscal year 2010, the FAA's major programs were funded at approximately $16 billion. H.R. 658, the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011, is a 4-year reauthorization that would reduce the FAA's annual funding to approximately 2008 appropriation levels, $14.9 billion, for the remainder of 2011 and then each year through fiscal year 2014. H.R. 658 would effectively cut, roughly, $1 billion annually and almost $4 billion total below current funding levels for FAA's budget over the next 4 years. These proposed cuts will have dire consequences on our Nation's infrastructure, jobs, and the economy.
Mr. Speaker, in February, the House Aviation Subcommittee held a hearing for industry stakeholders to testify about FAA reauthorization. In response to a question that I posed, witnesses representing the aerospace industry, general aviation manufacturers, general aviation pilots, airports, air traffic controllers, and FAA managers all testified that Congress could not cut $1 billion annually from the FAA's budget without harming safety-sensitive programs or hampering the industry. At the same hearing, Ms. Marion Blakey, the FAA administrator under President George W. Bush, stated: ``The prospect is really devastating to jobs and to our future.''
Every $1 billion of Federal investment in infrastructure creates or sustains approximately 35,000 jobs. Yet H.R. 658 would cut the airport improvement grants for runway construction and safety enhancements by almost $2 billion. Cuts to airport improvement grants alone would cost the Nation 70,000 jobs.
So let's be clear about one thing: The FAA reauthorization bill that we will consider later this week will not create jobs; it will destroy them. Although much work is ahead of us, I'm optimistic that Congress will be able to enact a long-term bill and we will not be considering a 19th short-term extension this summer. For the present, however, this particular extension, this bill before us today, I support, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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