Airport Alert: House Committee Clears Way for Defense Bill
July 18, 2020
The House Rules Committee late last night finished considering a defense authorization bill and a handful of airport-related amendments on a wide range of topics including the Contract Tower Program, PFAS, Buy American requirements and foreign jet bridges.House members filed more than 750 amendments before yesterday's session. The Rules Committee approved a structured rule that will allow the House to consider more than half of those amendments.
Democratic leaders plan to bring the bill -- H.R. 6395, the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 -- to the House floor on Monday and finish on Tuesday.
Notable Amendments Made In Order
DelBene/Buy American: Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) filed an amendment that would add aluminum to Buy American requirements for the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak.
Current law requires "all steel and manufactured goods used in Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funded projects be produced in the United States." However, the FAA has the authority to waive these preferences if "certain market or product conditions exist" including those related to supply and cost.
Veasey-Wright/Foreign Jet Bridges: Reps. Marc Veasey (D-TX) and Ron Wright (R-TX) filed a bipartisan amendment that would prohibit "federal airport improvement funds from being used to purchase passenger boarding bridges from companies that have violated intellectual property (IP) rights and threaten the national security of the U.S." The amendment is aimed at CIMC-Tianda, a Chinese company that manufactures jet bridges.
Perlmutter/PFAS: Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) filed an amendment that would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Heath to "conduct a study on the use of PFAS chemicals in firefighting equipment and the risk of exposure faced by firefighters." It would also create "a grant program for additional research and improvements to firefighting equipment to reduce exposure to PFAS."
Houlahan/PFAS: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) filed an amendment that would increase the authorization for CDC to study PFAS health implications from $10 million to $15 million.
Notable Amendments Not Made In Order
Brownley-Davis/CONTRACT Act: Reps. Julia Brownley (D-CA) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) filed a bipartisan amendment that would have helped airports that participate in the Contract Tower Program. It would provide an incentive for retired federal air traffic controllers to continue working as controllers at contract tower airports and help reduce staffing challenges those airports are facing.
The amendment mirrors H.R. 5297,the Continuity for Operators with Necessary Training Required for ATC Contract Towers Act of 2019, which Brownley introduced late last year. The House bill currently has 74 cosponsors. Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
Dingell/PFAS Action Act: Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) filed an amendment that would have added a modified version of the PFAS Action Act to the defense bill. But the Rules Committee did not make the amendment in order.
The House passed Dingell's PFAS Action Act as a free-standing bill (H.R. 535) on January 10. That bill would require EPA to designate perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous materials under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) within one year. The bill also calls on the agency to consider designating other PFAS as hazardous materials within five years. (Both provisions were modified in the proposed amendment.)
Unlike the revised amendment for the defense bill, H.R. 535 also includes liability protection for airports. AAAE worked closely with committee leaders to include an airport liability exemption in H.R. 535. We argued that airports should not be held liable since they are required by federal regulation to use firefighting foam that contains PFAS and have no approved alternatives.
