Senate Agreement Announced to Reopen FAA
"Senate Majority Leader Reid announces agreement to reopen FAA," The Associated Press reports. "The other officials say they expect the Senate to accept a House-passed bill as early as Friday." A statement from Reid does not offer the details of the deal:
I am pleased to announce that we have been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate to put 74,000 transportation and construction workers back to work. 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.
The deal is expected to end the nearly two-week-long shutdown of the agency that left 4,000 FAA employees out of work and 250 airport construction projects stalled, which would have employed 70,000 construction workers. According to the Wall Street Journal's estimates, the taxes that the FAA was unable to collect during the shutdown amounted to $30 million per day.
RELATED: Senate Postpones FAA Standoff with Temporary Funding
Update 4:46 p.m. EST: The AP learned some new details about the FAA agreement: "The deal would allow the Senate to approve a House bill extending the FAA’s operating authority through mid-September, including a provision that cuts $16.5 million in air service subsidies to rural communities."
