— Domani Spero
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On July 22, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) responsible for civil aviation safety issued the following notice:

At 12:15 EDT on July 22, 2014, the FAA issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) informing U.S. airlines that they are prohibited from flying to or from Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport for a period of up to 24 hours.  The notice was issued in response to a rocket strike which landed approximately one mile from Ben Gurion International Airport on the morning of July 22, 2014.  The NOTAM applies only to U.S. operators, and has no authority over foreign airlines operating to or from the airport.

On July 23, the notice was extended for another 24 hours:

Today the FAA issued another Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) informing U.S. airlines that yesterday’s NOTAM flight remains in effect for Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport for up-to-an-additional-24-hours while the FAA continues to monitor and evaluate the situation.

The agency is working closely with the Government of Israel to review the significant new information they have provided and determine whether potential risks to U.S. civil aviation are mitigated so the agency can resolve concerns as quickly as possible.

Also on July 23, Senator Cruz tweeted this:

I will hold all State Dept noms until Obama Admin answers questions about the unprecedented Israeli flight ban http://t.co/HOX3jOZFcM

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) July 23, 2014

The FAA is under the Department of Transportation and is headed by Anthony Foxx who is the  Secretary of Transportation, and not/not by John Kerry, the Secretary of State. That hardly matter these days.  Now, it looks like the Senate confirmation of several dozen nominees just got a tad more complicated.

Later in the evening of July 23,the FAA lifted the flight restriction:

The FAA has lifted its restrictions on U.S. airline flights into and out of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport by cancelling a Notice to Airmen it renewed earlier today. The cancellation is effective at approximately 11:45 p.m. EDT.

Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its U.S. government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the Government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation.

Whew! But not so fast.

Did you see what the senator was upset about?  From Sen. Cruz’s statement:

“Tourism is an $11 billion industry for Israel, which is in the middle of a summer high season already seriously diminished by the conflict initiated by Hamas.  Group tours have been cancelling at a 30% rate.  This FAA flight ban may well represent a crippling blow to a key economic sector through both security concerns and worries that additional bans will down more flights and strand more passengers.  It hardly matters if or when the ban is lifted. At this point, the damage may already be done.

He’s alleging economic boycott and mighty mad about it.  On June 24, Politico reported that the senator, who GQ calls the “Distinguished Wacko Bird from Texas” has vowed to block all State Department nominees until he gets answers. But it hardly matters what answers he get, he won’t like them when he gets them.

After such lengthy waits, with some nominees waiting for over a year, we thought that these State Department nominees will eventually get confirmed by August 1. Last year, some 30 nominees were confirmed by the Senate during its last day in session (see Here Comes the Sun: U.S. Senate Confirms A Slew of New Ambassadors as It Runs Out the Door). But that was before the “nuclear option“ changed  the Senate rules.  In November 2013, the Democrats changed the rules so executive-office appointments can advance to confirmation votes by a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60-vote majority that was previously needed. Read more of that here and here.

Senator Cruz is , of course, not the first one to deploy a blanket hold to extract something from the executive branch.  We can’t remember all of them but you might recall that in 2010, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) also adopted the blanket hold in an attempt to compel the Administration to award certain defense contracts to his home state of Alabama. Not endorsing it but can understand why he would do that for Alabama.  In the current case, one is left wondering why is the $11 billion tourism industry in a foreign country more important to a sitting senator than having our top people on the ground to protect and promote American interests.

Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg Views recently wrote that it seems unlikely that any new executive branch holds by Senator Cruz would make much difference. “Without majority support, a hold is merely a senator’s threat to use every stalling tactic available.” Don’t tear out your hair or scream yet, we’ll have until August 1st to wait and see.

Below are the State Department and USAID nominees who were cleared through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and are just waiting for the full Senate vote. We have included the dates these nominations were officially announced and the dates they were reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Related articles

• FAA extends ban on Tel Aviv flights another 24 hours (aviationblog.dallasnews.com)
• FAA: Flight Ban Extended For All US Flights To Tel Aviv (losangeles.cbslocal.com)
• Map: No-Fly Zones and Restricted Airspaces (news.nationalgeographic.com)
• Flights to Tel Aviv banned; here’s the fine print (blogs.seattletimes.com)