Senator vows to protect air traffic jobs from competition

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., on Friday pledged a "forceful assault" to ensure that lawmakers restore provisions protecting federal air traffic employees from competition to the Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill before sending it to President Bush.

House and Senate negotiators agreed last week to eliminate language in the bill preventing the FAA from outsourcing flight service specialists, air traffic controllers and air traffic technicians. Lawmakers were concerned that President Bush would veto the bill if the provision was not removed, Lautenberg said.

Lautenberg is considering various parliamentary tactics, including a filibuster, to prevent the Senate from passing the conference committee version of the bill. A number of senators who have previously demonstrated their support for air traffic controllers may step forward to oppose the measure, he said.

Language approved by the conference committee would bar the FAA from subjecting air traffic controllers to competition until 2008, but would exempt 69 low- and medium-activity towers, with a total of approximately 1,000 employees, from the ban.

The conference committee also struck a Senate-passed provision that would stop the FAA from conducting the biggest job competition in government, one involving the jobs of 2,700 flight service specialists at 58 stations across the country. Flight service specialists provide weather briefings to pilots and assist with search and rescue activities, but they do not control air traffic.

Air traffic technicians and workers in the flight service system, who provide weather briefings and flight planning advice to pilots, would also be vulnerable to competition under the compromise legislation. The FAA has begun crafting the list of requirements that potential bidders for the flight service system-which currently costs $400 million a year to operate-must fulfill.

By allowing the FAA to compete such jobs, Congress would essentially "farm out the entire federal air traffic control system to the lowest bidder," Lautenberg said. "There are some things we can do to save money, but security on the cheap is not what the American people want."

Private air traffic control systems have not worked particularly well in other countries, Lautenberg said. For instance, Great Britain experienced a 50 percent increase in narrowly avoided crashes after privatizing its control system, and Canada's private system has accumulated a $145 million deficit.

The FAA has already privatized jobs at 219 low-activity towers under its Contract Tower Program. On Wednesday, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association asked the Transportation Department inspector general's office to investigate the program's cost effectiveness. The association said funding for the program has grown by 49 percent over the past three years.

At a July 24 Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, Angela Styles, head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, explained that giving the FAA the option to run competitions for air traffic controller jobs is not akin to privatizing the entire air traffic control system. The administration would simply like to designate certain air traffic positions as "commercial in nature," she said, giving the FAA an opportunity to put the jobs up for bids if it wishes.