WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to pass legislation that would reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that oversees commercial airlines and airports, for the next five years.
Lawmakers approved the bill, called the Ensuring Robust Leadership and Growth in American Aviation Act, which included a provision to raise the retirement age for pilots from 65 to 67 amid a great shortage of pilotsin a vote of 351-69.
The effort to raise the retirement age met with some opposition inside the chamber from lawmakers who thought the move could jeopardize pilot standards and passenger safety. But the Rules Committee blocked an amendment that would have stopped the change.
«America has always been the gold standard in aviation, and this bill ensures we remain the world leader,» House Transportation Committee Chairman Sam Graves, R-Missouri, said in a statement.
Several other amendments to the bill were considered, including one written by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, and Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, that would force airlines to rehire all pilots who were fired for refusing to be vaccinated. The chamber overwhelmingly rejected that amendment.
The Senate needs to pass its own version of the bill so the two chambers can craft a final measure before the current authorization expires on September 30. The senators had been drafting their own authorizing legislation, but that process appears to be on hold.
Authorization is vital to the agency’s work. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NBC News that a «good» FAA reauthorization is key to combating flight cancellations and delays, adding that the agency doesn’t «have the number of air traffic controllers» they need and that they don’t have the resources to «modernize [their] systems that has to happen in the next few years.
«[W]We can’t do it without Congress,» Buttigieg said.