RAA senior vice president for government affairs Faye Malarkey Black concedes she might have let some Washington cynicism and weariness over a budget battle that has been going on since 2007 color her judgment during last year’s RAA fall meeting, when she predicted that an FAA reauthorization bill would not pass this year. That the House of Representatives would prove her wrong “was a little bit surprising,” she told AIN just days after the House of Representatives passed the “FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011” (H.R. 658) by a 223-196 vote based largely along party lines, but nevertheless welcome.
“Now we’ve really revised our thinking on that quite a bit,” Black said. “It has passed the Senate and now it’s passed the House. We’re basically saying, ‘Wow, who knew that after 17, now 18 [temporary] extensions, that this year, as kind of unexpected as it may have been, would have been the year to get something.’”
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