Partisan dispute to partially closed FAA

WASHINGTON (AP) - Efforts to avoid a judgment of the federal Aviation Administration failed Friday in a disagreement on a 16.5 million cut in grants to 13 rural communities, ensuring that nearly 4,000 people will be temporarily for their work and federal company ticket taxes will be suspended.Lawmakers have been unable to resolve a partisan dispute over an extension of the authorization for operation of the Agency, which expired at midnight Friday.The cut grant were included by Republicans in a House Bill extending authorization of exploitation of the FAA, which has a budget of $ 16 billion. Senate Democrats refused to accept Bill of House cuts with Republican senators refused to accept a democratic Bill without it. Legislators is then adjourned for the weekend.But underlying the dispute on the rural air service subsidies has been a stalemate between the GOP controlled House and the Senate under democratic control on a provision of law of financing long term for the FAA would make it more difficult for workers of the airline and railway to join the Union.Obama administration officials have said that the closure will not affect aviation safety. Air traffic controllers will remain on the job. But the airlines will lose the authority to collect approximately $ 200 million a week in ticket taxes that go into a trust fund that pays for FAA programs.Employees FAA whose jobs are paid with money from the Trust Fund will be returned, with nearly 1,000 workers at the headquarters, in Washington, 647 workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Centre for research and technology of the FAA and 124 workers in Oklahoma City Agency Training Centre of the Agency. "They are real people with families who do not deserve to be put out of work during this difficult economic period,"the FAA Administrator Randy babbitt said in a statement."Air passengers could see a big savings on their tickets, but the situation is complicated. A roundtrip airfare $300 federal taxes are approximately $61, but about half from the airport and the costs of security which will continue to be collected, according to the Air Transport Association.Airlines, alerted earlier this week that authority FAA could expire, have made adjustments to their computer systems and Web sites so that at midnight, taxes would be is more added to tickets, the association said.An airline, US Airways, was already increasing its rates. Other airlines may try to pull a windfall of tax exemption.Passengers who purchased their tickets before the closure, but travelling during the closure can liquidate due a refund, said the spokesman for the Department of the Treasury Sandra salstrom . This is because it is not clear whether the Government can keep taxes for a trip that takes place during a period where the Government has not authorized to collect taxes, she said.Similarly, it was not clear if passengers who buy tickets after midnight with no taxes would wind up owing taxes if their trip took place after the FAA for operating authority is restored, she said.The IRS will make probably orientation more later to clarify the situation, said Salstrom.Autorisation of long term for the FAA funding expired in 2007. Unable to agree on new legislation for funding long term of the Agency, Congress has kept the FAA running through a series of 20 projects of expansion in the short term. The extensions were routine until this week.The Senate passed a Bill in the long term in February and at home a different version in April. Legislators have resolved most of the differences between the Bills, but no progress has been made on half a dozen or more controversial.Republicans say leader of the majority of the Senate Harry reid, D - Nev., insists that a provision of hand work of Bill House sought by the air transport industry must be removed before the negotiations can move forward.The provision of work could reverse a rule of The National Mediation Office approved last year which allows the employees of air and rail transportation to form a union to a simple majority of the voting. Under the old rule, workers who did not vote were treated as "no" votes.Republicans complain that the new previous reverse rule for trade unions in 75 years. Democrats and Union representatives say that change is the air transport and rail elections under the same democratic rules required for all other companies of unionization.In March, the White House warned that President Barack Obama could veto the Bill if the work is preserved.Just before it prevented the proposed extension of the Democrats, Senator orrin hatch, R-Utah, said that he shared the House Republicans' frustration "that favors unions overshadowed the Outlook for the FAA in the long term" funding.Another unresolved issue is about 200 million dollars in grants for air services in rural communities. The program was created in the deregulation of airlines in 1978 to ensure a continuous air service on the less profitable routes to isolated communities. The project House of the FAA in the long term would eliminate the program except for airports Alaska.The Senate bill would eliminate service to 13 communities that are either less than 90 miles of an airport hub or where total grants more than $1,000 per passenger. It is the language Republican House added to their extension project.But one of the greatest defenders of the program is Senator Jay rockefeller, D - va, President of the Senate Committee with jurisdiction over the legislation of the FAA. One of the airports which would lose subsidies is Morgantown, W.Va. ___Online: Federal Aviation Administration: www.faa.gov.