USCTA Alerts

After a breakthrough yesterday, the Senate late tonight passed a bill – the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2026 – to reopen the government and provide funding to keep it operating until January 30, 2026.

In a rare Sunday session, the Senate late tonight cleared a procedural hurdle that appears to put lawmakers on the path to ending the government shutdown that has been going on for almost 40 days and disrupted commercial airline flights after the DOT began phasing in flight reductions at 40 airports on Friday.

In a notice issued this afternoon, the DOT indicated that it has secured additional funding to support the Essential Air Service and Alternative Essential Air Service programs and maintain subsidy and grant reimbursements through November 18.

The FAA released $2.89 billion in FY26 allocations under the Airport Infrastructure Grant (AIG) Program, which provides $15 billion for airport infrastructure upgrades over five years and was created by Congress through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

We have good news to report this morning from the Senate Commerce Committee, where Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) has withdrawn three troubling amendments that were aimed at limit the ability of airports to utilize ADS-B technology for the collection of appropriate, reasonable, and necessary user fees.

Following up on our Action Alert from earlier today, we have learned that Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) has filed three amendments with the Senate Commerce Committee that, if adopted, would limit the use of ADS-B technology by airports for reasonable and necessary user fee collections.

As we noted in an earlier Alert, the Senate Commerce Committee next Tuesday, October 21, is scheduled to consider legislation known as the ROTOR Act that was introduced in the wake of the tragic January accident at DCA to establish new requirements for the utilization of ADS-B technology by virtually all aircraft and helicopters.

In a notice issued this afternoon, the DOT amended its earlier notice from October 6 to indicated that additional funding has been secured to support the Essential Air Service and Alternative Essential Air Service programs and maintain subsidy and grant reimbursements through November 2.

The Senate today again rejected two competing short-term continuing resolutions to temporarily fund the federal government -- one proposed by Republicans and one by Democrats. The latest round of votes comes after the government shutdown kicked in at midnight.

With a government shutdown just hours away, the Senate late today rejected two short-term continuing resolutions to keep the federal government operating – one proposed by Republicans and one by Democrats.