A $60-billion aviation funding bill that includes $14.2 billion for airport construction programs passed in the House last month, but may be held up in the Senate where N.J. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) is threatening to filibuster the revised bill over a provision that would privatize air traffic controllers, Engineering News-Record reports. Although GOP lawmakers removed provisions covering privatization of towers, Lautenberg still is concerned about the revised bill. President Bush also threatened to veto the bill if the final version includes the privatizing language.

House Republicans and Democrats have been sparring over various provisions of this legislation since July, and, as a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been unable to issue new airport construction grants since the prior legislation, AIR-21—the 2000 Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, expired at the end of the September.

ENR notes that the airport construction funding hasn’t changed from its July levels in the bill’s most recent iteration. The grant program would receive $3.4 billion in 2004, up $47 million from the 2003 level. Funding then would rise by $100 million in each of the next three years, hitting $3.7 billion in 2007.

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