Congressman Gerry Connolly today joined with Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey and the Chairmen of the House Transportation and Homeland Security Committees in introducing legislation to grant the U.S. Secretary of Transportation authority to pay the salaries and related benefits of federal employees who were furloughed during the 13-day partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Connolly said the bipartisan legislation – the Furloughed FAA Employees Compensation Act - would provide the back-pay and benefit costs for the FAA employees from the federal Aviation Trust Fund.  The shutdown began at midnight on July 22, 2011 and ended on August 5, 2011. It affected approximately 4,000 federal FAA employees, nearly 1,000 of them in the Washington area.

Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, teamed up with House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL), House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, and Congressmen LoBiondo (R-NJ), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and Jon Runyan (R-NJ) to introduce the bill.

Throughout the two-week partial shutdown of FAA airport safety operations, Connolly repeated called on the House and Senate leadership to bring a simple bill forward to allow for the continued funding of the program and its employees.  “It was absurd that these FAA workers and airport construction workers were not getting paid, their jobs weren’t getting done, and the taxpayers were being robbed of $30 million a day.”

Connolly said, “We need to make these federal employees whole and make sure that we prevent future political shenanigans in Congress that resulted in this shutdown.”  Pointing out that some FAA airport safety inspectors used personal funds to continue to travel and do their jobs without pay, he said, “I applaud their dedication to public service, but it is shameful that they were required to reach into their own pockets to keep our airports safe.”

This is not the first time Connolly has sought back pay for federal employees who were furloughed through no fault of their own.  In March 2010, a Connolly bill passed Congress that awarded back pay to 1,922 employees of four DOT agencies who were furloughed when the Highway Trust Fund was allowed to lapse.

Connolly also noted there is clear precedent for compensating federal employees for such furloughs, citing the 26-day government shutdown affecting 800,000 federal workers in late 1995 and early 1996 during the Clinton Administration.  The Republican-controlled Congress subsequently voted to compensate all of those employees.

“It was the right thing to do then, and it's the right thing to do now,” Connolly said