The latest extension of legislation funding the Federal Aviation Administration expires June 30, giving federal lawmakers just another 90 days to meet the deadline of the end of the government’s fiscal year. The House passed its version of the bill in September but the Senate has failed to follow suit, primarily over tacked-on non-aviation amendments and partisan politics. Congress has extended six times the bill that expired on Sept. 30, 2007 raising money from the general aviation and commercial airline industries for the Airport and Airway Trust Fund that pays for the FAA and a next-generation air traffic control system. General aviation, which includes aircraft charter and management companies and private aircraft owners, won a victory of sorts by turning back a change that would replace the collection of a gas tax with a user fee to fund the FAA. The House version of the bill continues the gas tax as does the pending Senate bill. However, when industry experts gathered in May for a general aviation conference in Van Nuys all said that the top issue facing the industry was the reauthorization bill and some expressed disappointment that the Senate hadn’t yet passed it. Representatives of various lobbying groups said they will have to double their efforts to get the Senate moving on its bill and then reconcile the language between it and the House versions. “Having certainty and predictability from having a multi-year renewal is in the best interests of the industry,” National Business Aviation Association President Ed Bolen said. “Nobody gets a full loaf but everybody can live with the bill,” added Henry Ogrodzinski, president and CEO of the National Association of State Aviation Officials. The $37.2 billion House bill increases the general aviation fuel tax by 65 percent to 36 cents a gallon for turbine-powered jets and earmarks the additional money to update the air traffic control system. The bill emerging from the Senate Commerce Committee initially sided with a $25 user fee levied against all airlines and private jet aircraft as a replacement for the gas tax. The fee was expected to collect up to $400 million for control system modernization. The gas tax vs. user fee debate created distinct lines between who favored which. The commercial air carriers argued the user fee was more equitable and necessary to keep its passengers from subsidizing the flights of corporate executives. The business aviation industry countered that a user fee sets a bad precedent and supported keeping the fuel sales tax. “It’s easy to pay, easy to understand and easy for the government to collect,” Bolen said. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee, eventually backed off his support of the user fee to get the bill progressing through the Senate. But then various factors surfaced that stalled the bill. Non-aviation amendments related to the Highway Trust Fund and tax-credit bonds for railway infrastructure got tacked onto the bill that resulted in the failure to take the bill to the Senate floor for a full vote. Tacking on highway spending was what Ogrodzinski called a “classic inside the beltway move” to make up the shortfall in the trust fund. In addition, Senate leader Harry Reid pulled a maneuver that only allowed amendments from other Democrats, resulting in a fight from the Republicans that blocked the bill from going to the Senate floor. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the ranking Republican on the Aviation Subcommittee, attempted to introduce a version of the bill with no amendments attached in the Commerce Committee but that went nowhere. “The bill got wrapped around the axle of all of these non-germane issues,” Ogrodzinski said. If no bill passes the Senate and lands before President Bush before Sept. 30 then the process of crafting the legislation begins anew with a new Congress and administration in January.