Washington, D.C

Senate passes FAA bill after DC-area senators drop blockade – Washington Examiner

Published

2 years ago

May 9, 2024

Senate passes FAA bill after DC-area senators drop blockade – Washington Examiner

The Senate passed a major aviation bill on Thursday, marking an end to a monthslong fight over whether to add more flights to the nation’s busiest runway.

Last month, negotiators in both chambers unveiled a compromise bill that would reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for another five years, but a provision to add 10 slots at Reagan National Airport prompted outrage from Washington, D.C.-area senators, who warned the flights would cause delays and a risk to public safety.

The four senators, from Maryland and Virginia, held up passage for days, demanding a vote to strip out the slots, but they ultimately relented with the Friday expiration of the law looming.

The measure passed in an 88-4 vote, with Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Mark Warner (D-VA) opposed.

“After months of painstaking work, the FAA reauthorization has passed in the Senate today,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said ahead of the final vote. “Aviation safety has been front of mind for millions of Americans recently, and passing this FAA bill is the best thing Congress can do to give Americans the peace of mind they deserve.”

The House departed for the week on Wednesday, meaning the soonest it can get through Congress and to President Joe Biden’s desk is Tuesday, but the lower chamber passed a one-week extension to avoid a temporary lapse before it left.

That extension cleared the upper chamber by voice vote less than an hour after the flagship bill.

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), left, and Mark Warner (D-VA) arrive as the Senate holds a procedural vote on a package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel, and other U.S. allies, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The fight over DCA slots was not the only holdup on the FAA bill. Negotiators tweaked the legislation at the last minute to resolve a dispute over the Biden administration’s airline refund policy.

Meanwhile, senators saw the reauthorization, one of the final must-pass bills of the current Congress, as a chance to attach unrelated provisions. More than a hundred amendments were filed, but none were ultimately granted a vote.

The Senate operates by unanimous consent, so any one senator could have dragged the process out further. As recently as Thursday afternoon, members from Maryland and Virginia were promising to use every “procedural right” they had to force a vote on the flights.

But they agreed to drop their holds with a simple gesture from Schumer. He brought forward a compromise amendment that would have allowed the flights if the transportation secretary certifies they do not pose a safety hazard.

The amendment was quickly blocked by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, who objected to a vote from the Senate floor.

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The one-week extension faced some controversy of its own. Senators delayed the bill briefly as they worked to get a commitment for future votes on unrelated legislation. Two online safety bills were the subject of negotiations, according to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the chairwoman of the Commerce Committee, as was an expiring affordable internet program.

“Everybody said, ‘I want my time on the floor!’” she said, noting that a hotline went out to gauge support but that any member could object.

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Washington, D.C

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

Published

9 hours ago

April 19, 2026

Press Room

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

4 things to know about the weather:

Chances of rain in the morning
Gusty Sunday
Chilly Monday
Temps will rise again through the work week

Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.

After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.

The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.

Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.

However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.

QuickCast

SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s

MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s

Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.

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Washington, D.C

‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

Published

1 day ago

April 18, 2026

Press Room

‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.

In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.

“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”

Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.

Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.

“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.

“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”

Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”

A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.

Rachel Reeves posted this image on Instagram from Washington DC on Thursday with the message: ‘Friends that run together – work together.’ Photograph: Rachel Reeves/Instagram

Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.

Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.

But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.

“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”

At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.

The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.

Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.

For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.

“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.

“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”

For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.

In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.

Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.

“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”

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