I don't think that's exactly correct. The House version that came out of the House Trans committee never made it to the House Floor for a vote. IIRC the House version would have been DOA to the Senate anyway because it contained a privatized ATC provision. So the Senate developed their own FAA funding bill which now the House has to approve or come up with a compromise acceptable to the Senate.
Take a look:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/636
According to this is passed the house on 2/16/2015 and then pass the senate in 2016... It could be something funky with the website as well....
I followed up with a Gov Advocacy specialist and this was our conversation....
From Me:
Good Morning, I am reading up on the senate’s recent passing of the FAA Reauthorization bill and it appears there are a number of confusing points which I hope you can clarify.
First, the Senate bill was S2658 (
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2658) which many news agencies indicate passed, does not appear to have passed in the senate.
However, HR636, which was a house bill, which was passed by the House back in February was voted on by the senate after a series of amendments.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/636 Am I wrong to assume this bill will go back to the house for review of the senate’s amendments and then, if the house accepts them, on to the president?
Or did the senate really pass S2658 which would then need to go to the house for a full vote?
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The reply from the expert:
Hi Daniel,
You are correct, the bill passed was actually a house bill that was stripped of its original language and amended to contain the language of the Senate reauthorization bill. This sort of bizarre maneuver is sometimes done to take advantage of parliamentary rules. Functionally, I believe the process from this point is the same as if the Senate actually passed a Senate bill – the House can either agree to the bill as passed by the Senate as-is or add their own amendments, in which case the Senate and House would form a conference committee to create a compromise bill, which would then need to be re-passed by both chambers.
Thanks for your question – we agree it’s needlessly confusing!
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I am not a Gov. process expert and have been struggling to keep up