Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is sharply criticizing Spirit Airlines for its response to new price advertising rules from the Department of Transportation.

Spirit, a discount airline based in Florida, has protested DOT’s requirement that advertisements for airline tickets include all taxes and fees in the prices that are listed for flights. The airline placed a pop-up ad on its website that says “new government regulations require us to HIDE taxes in your fares.”

But Boxer, writing to Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza about the new rules, which took effect this week, said that “nothing could be further from the truth.”

“I have been shocked by the failure of your airline to tell the truth in an email sent to your customers earlier this week as well as warnings posted on Spirit.com,” Boxer, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, wrote to Baldanza.

“What the rule says is that you have to tell your customers the full cost of a ticket,” she continued. “It prohibits Spirit or any other airline from advertising fares ‘that exclude taxes, fees or other charges since the major impact of such presentations is to confuse and deceive consumers.’ “

Boxer said Spirit should “immediately send a clarifying email to your customers and remove the misleading information from your website.”

Spirit has defended its campaign against DOT’s new rules, saying “[W]e believe that the better form of transparency is to break out costs so customers know exactly what they are buying.

“Spirit believes customers have a right to know how much of their fare goes toward government taxes and fees rather than hiding it in the fare,” Baldaza said in a statement released this week.

“If the government can hide taxes in consumer’s airfares — which they are mandating us to do starting this week — then they can quietly carry out their hidden agenda and increase the taxes consumers bear,” he continued.

Spirit, Southwest and Allegiant airlines have filed a lawsuit challenging the DOT rules, which took effect Jan. 24. Spirit and AirTran Airways, which is owned by Southwest, were recently fined a combined $90,000 for violating the pricing rules in advertisements such as emails, tweets and on their websites.

by Keith Laing, The Hill Newspaper
1/25/12

Sparks flew Wednesday at a House hearing investigating battery fires associated with the Chevrolet Volt electric car.

Republicans hammered David Strickland, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), over his agency’s handling of the battery fires during a meeting of a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

But Strickland defended the Volt, insisting the electric car produced by General Motors, the beneficiary of a 2009 government bailout, was perfectly safe.

“The Chevrolet Volt is safe to drive and it has been safe to drive the whole time,” Strickland told the panel Wednesday. “Not only would I drive it, I would [take] my wife, my mother and my baby sister along for the ride.”

Republicans on the committee remained skeptical, accusing Strickland of concealing the investigation of the Volt batteries because the Obama administration was intent on pushing electric vehicles.

“Whose best interest were you acting in?” Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) said. “It certainly wasn’t the American public.

“Is the commitment to the American public or is the commitment to clean energy that we are going to get there any way we can?” Kelly continued. “When the market is ready … it won’t have to be subsidized.”

Republicans zeroed in on allegations the highway safety agency kept an investigation of a June explosion of a Volt quiet until news reports about the incident surfaced in November.

“You knew about that explosion … when you came and testified before Congress, and when the president talked about [fuel efficiency] standards,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), said to Strickland during the hearing.

“But for the [news reports], would you have ever told us?” Jordan asked Strickland.

Strickland responded that the agency’s investigation “took every second of that time,” and he defended the safety of the electric vehicles.

Democrats on the committee defended both Strickland and the Chevy Volt. They argued Republicans were using the battery fire in the Chevy Volt to attempt to put the brakes on the Obama administration’s clean-car proposals.

“This hearing is not about safety,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said. “This hearing is about an attack.”

“I wouldn’t want this committee’s activities on this issue to discourage companies like GM from continuing to innovate,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) added. “We don’t want to be buying lithium-ion batteries from China in five years.”

General Motors CEO Daniel Akerson likewise argued that the debate about the Volt was too political, telling the committee, “[W]e did not develop the Chevy Volt to be a political punching bag.

“We engineered the Volt to be a technological wonder,” he said during his opening remarks to the committee. “Motor Trend called it a moon-shot, and it is.”

But House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he was more interested in the Obama administration’s involvement in the Volt’s development.

“Your administration is not up to speed to maintain safety in an electric age,” he said to NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “You don’t know what you’re doing [and] an anomaly happened.”

President Obama touted his handling of the auto bailouts in his third State of the Union address Tuesday evening, saying the turnaround of the American car companies offered a blueprint for other struggling manufacturing sectors.

“On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse,” he said. “Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen.”

Obama has sought to turn the once-unpopular auto bailouts into a political advantage in his bid for re-election. He noted Tuesday “in exchange for help, we demanded responsibility.”

“We got workers and automakers to settle their differences,” he said. “We got the industry to retool and restructure.  Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker.  Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company.  Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories.  And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

“We bet on American workers,” Obama said. “We bet on American ingenuity.  And tonight, the American auto industry is back.”

Obama added that “what’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.

“It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh,” he said, referencing cities located in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Obama’s re-election campaign has made clear it intends to tout the auto bailouts in Midwestern states that rely heavily on auto manufacturing. He and other Democrats have pointed to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s widely read op-ed in The New York Times in the fall of 2008 that argued against the federal government assisting General Motors and Chrysler.

The article was titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” and in it Romney said giving the auto companies financial assistance in 2008 would be worse for them than allowing them to go bankrupt.

“If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye,” Romney wrote in the article. “It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”

Romney has since defended his position, saying that the conditions that were eventually placed on the federal government’s assistance by the Obama administration mirrored his proposals.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/automobiles/206321-obama-touts-auto-bailouts-in-state-of-the-union

President Obama made no mention of high-speed rail in his third State of the Union address Tuesday night, providing a sharp departure from previous years’ speeches in which when he vocally championed a nationwide network of railways.

Likely coloring the omission was the fact that Republicans largely put the brakes on Obama’s rail initiatives in 2011. The GOP-led House voted last year to eliminate all funding for high-speed rail projects in the 2012 federal budget, and Republican lawmakers pushed for most of the year to privatize the most popular Amtrak service.
With that as a backdrop, Obama said nothing about his vision for a network of railways Tuesday night. It was a far cry from when he suggested in the past it would rival the interstate highway system that was built under former President Dwight Eisenhower.

In his first State of the Union address in 2010, the then second-year president mentioned that his traditional appearance the day after his address to Congress would be in Tampa, Fla., to announce the state of Florida was receiving $2.4 billion of the $8 billion that was included in the 2009 economic stimulus package.

“Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act,” he said to applause in January 2010, when Democrats still controlled the House of Representatives.

“There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information,” Obama continued in his 2010 State of the Union address.

But later in the year the president delivered those remarks, Florida elected a new Republican governor. That new governor, Rick Scott, rejected the Obama administration’s rail money shortly after taking office in 2011.

Scott was one of three Republican governors elected in 2010 to reject rail money offered by the Obama administration. The other rejections came before the president took to the House to speak to lawmakers in 2011, but Obama still pushed the rail message again that year.

“Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail,” Obama said in his State of the Union address last year. “This could allow you to go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than flying — without the pat-down. As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already under way.”

Republicans in the House had other plans, however. The party spent a large part of 2011 pushing to privatize Amtrak routes in the national passenger rail service’s most profitable region, the Northeast.

On Tuesday, when Obama talked about improving the nation’s infrastructure, which is where he has in the past mentioned his high-speed rail plans, he stuck to energy, roads and bridges and the Internet.

“So much of America needs to be rebuilt,” he said. “We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/railroads/206299-rail-left-at-the-station-in-obama-state-of-the-union-address

by Keith Laing, The Hill Newspaper
1/23/12

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) refused a pat-down from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Monday, touching off a back-and-forth over the controversial agency’s airport security techniques.

Paul, who has been critical of TSA in the past, said security officials at Nashville International Airport made him miss a flight to Washington on Monday morning after he refused to agree to a hand search.

The freshman senator said during an interview with a Kentucky radio station that he offered to go back through an X-ray machine after security officials said an item on his leg triggered alarms. But he said was told, “No, you must do as you’re told or you’re going to miss your flight.”

Paul refused the pat-down, exited the security area, booked a later flight to Washington and returned to the security area, where he went through the X-ray machines without incident. He noted he flies through that airport at least once a week and had been allowed to go back through the X-ray machines on previous occasions when he set off an alarm.

He said that security at airports was necessary, but TSA’s pat-downs went too far.

“We need security and everybody should go through some,” he said during an interview with Lexington, Ky., radio host Leland Conway. “But I think there’s a breaking point where we’re invading people’s privacy and we’re invading their dignity.

“The pat-down is not [catching] anybody, and I think it’s a disservice to our liberty,” he said.

Sen. Paul’s father, Republican presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R), agreed Monday. The elder Paul said that the TSA incident pointed to a “police state,” and he reiterated his call for eliminating the agency.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” Rep. Paul, who confirmed the incident Monday morning on his Twitter page, said in a statement released by his presidential campaign.

“One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities,” he continued. “The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe. That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in addition to cutting $1 trillion in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.”

TSA defended its treatment of Sen. Paul, saying that its employees in Nashville followed normal procedure with the senator, who has often sharply criticized the agency’s pat-downs.

“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” the agency said in a written statement. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”

Original reports said the senator was detained. Rep. Paul tweeted that early Monday morning, writing: “My son @SenRandPaul being detained by TSA for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner in Nashville.”

But U.S. security officials denied that Sen. Paul was held by the agency. Instead, they said, the senator was escorted out of the security area following his refusal to accept a pat-down.

TSA’s statement noted that “the passenger,” Paul, was “rebooked on another flight and was rescreened without incident.”

Both Pauls have been vocal critics of the TSA, calling for the controversial agency to be disbanded.

“This kind of gets back to this whole idea of what we are willing to … give up as a country,” Sen. Paul said of pat-downs last summer during a hearing in which TSA Administrator John Pistole appeared before lawmakers.

“Ninety-five-year-old women humiliated, children molested, disabled people abused,” Rep. Paul said of TSA last summer, during one of his weekly “Texas Straight Talk” audio addresses. “Men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas, and involuntary radiation exposure.

“If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents,” Rep. Paul continued. “Unfortunately, in this case, the perpetrators are armed federal agents.”

On Monday, Sen. Paul said that he did not take issue with his treatment by TSA owing to his status as a member of Congress.

“I don’t want any special treatment,” he said during the interview with the Kentucky radio station. “I won’t introduce any legislation to make me get special treatment [as a senator].

“But I would like to see everyone have the ability to go back through the screener,” he said.

Rep. Paul agreed there needed to be changes, saying that as a presidential aspirant he was “deeply committed” to restoring “the freedom and respect for liberty that once made America the greatest nation in human history.” The Texas lawmaker is one of the four remaining candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

However, the White House defended TSA in the standoff with the Kentucky senator.

“I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/205855-sen-rand-paul-tsa-pat-downs-are-a-disservice-to-our-liberty

Lawmakers have reached a deal on a long-term funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that is likely to prevent shutdowns of the beleaguered agency for the foreseeable future, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said late Friday afternoon.

The FAA’s funding, contained in a short-term bill that lawmakers approved last fall, had been scheduled to run out Jan. 31. But Reid said in a statement released by his office that a compromise had been reached Friday on thorny labor provisions that have held up an agreement on a long-term measure for the better part of a year.

“I am pleased that we were able to resolve the major obstacles in a manner that protects American workers and clears the way for a long-term extension of the Federal Aviation Administration,” Reid said. “While some issues remain, there is no reason we cannot resolve them in the coming days and avoid any risk of another FAA shutdown.”

Reid praised lawmakers for being willing to reach a compromise on controversial labor provisions that had eluded lawmakers as they passed 22 short-term extensions of the last FAA authorization bill, which expired in 2007.

“Every issue does not have to be a fight,” he said. “This is a good example of the common-sense results that Democrats and Republicans can produce when they work together and put the interests of the American people ahead of scoring political points.”

A provision undoing changes made to labor election rules for transportation workers by the National Mediation Board (NMB) had held up the compromise. Last year, both the House and Senate passed long-term bills for the FAA; the House approved a four-year, $59 billion bill, while the Senate passed a two-year, $34 billion version.

But the House version reversed the NMB rules that ensured absentee votes were not counted as votes against forming a union.

The Democratically-controlled Senate balked at the provision, calling it anti-democratic, and until Friday, the GOP-led House had refused to drop it, leading to a standoff that lasted for most of 2011.

A Senate Democratic aide said under the compromise reached Friday, the percentage of a company’s workforce that would have to be in favor of a vote on unionization would be increased from 35 to 50 percent, and the NMB would have to hold public hearings before making future rule changes in lieu of requiring them to be reviewed by judges.

“This is a compromise that should ensure passage of a long-term funding bill for the FAA,” the Senate Democratic source told The Hill.

A spokesman for House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) agreed.

“We can now move ahead on this critical infrastructure measure that will help create jobs, modernize our nation’s air traffic control system, and reduce the size of government,” the Mica spokesman said.

Both the House and Senate aides stressed that there are still issues remaining to be resolved in the long-term FAA bill, but the labor provisions have long been regarded to be the biggest roadblock

The sources said the compromise bill would fund the FAA for four years.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/aviation/205515-lawmakers-reach-deal-to-clear-long-term-faa-funding-for-take-off

Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) says the Italian cruise ship accident that left 11 people dead shows the need for more regulation of the industry.

Matsui, who sponsored legislation passed by Congress last year to improve the safety of passengers onboard cruise ships, said Tuesday the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act that signed into law last year by President Obama was just the first step necessary to rein in a “highly unregulated cruise line industry.”

“The Costa Concordia tragedy underlines the critical need for greater regulation of the cruise line industry,” she said in a statement. “While this was a major step forward in oversight of the highly unregulated cruise line industry, the incident in Italy shows that still more must be done to protect passengers.”

Matsui said during the debate over the 2010 cruise line bill that she introduced the measure because one of her constituents was sexually assaulted during a cruise.

The law focuses more on the behavior of passengers aboard ships than on the safety of the vessels themselves. For example, it requires cruise lines to provide video surveillance and provide medical personnel on board to deal with the possibility of sexual assaults.

The law also required cruise ships to be fitted with peepholes in passenger’s rooms and side rails that were at least 42 inches high.

The measure does not address the responsibilities of cruise ship captains when accidents occur. The captain of the Costa Concordia, which was carrying 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members when it crashed near Italy, reportedly abandoned the damaged ship.

Matsui pledged to “continue working with my colleagues to see that there is greater regulation of, and accountability for, the cruise industry, so that a tragedy like this does not occur again.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/1095-other/204561-rep-doris-matsui-italian-accident-shows-need-for-greater-regulation-of-cruise-lines

The cruise line industry is defending its safety record after an accident off the coast of Italy killed six people when a ship ran aground.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the accident that occurred when a Costa Concordia cruise ship reportedly left the water Friday near Italy was a “terrible tragedy” but not a common problem.

“Accidents such as this one are an extremely rare occurrence in the cruise industry, and cruising continues to be one of the safest means of travel among all types of vacationing,” the association said Monday in a statement.

“CLIA and all its member cruise lines join with Costa and Carnival in extending our most sincere condolences to all those affected by this terrible tragedy,” the statement continued. “We will continue to keep our travel agent members updated as we receive further information.”

The owner of the cruise ship, Miami-based Carnival Corporation & plc, said the Costa Concordia hit a rock off the coast of Isola del Giglio. The company said the vessel “sustained significant damage causing the ship to list severely” and added that “the order was given to abandon ship and deploy the lifeboats.”

Carnival said in a statement over the weekend that the Costa Concordia accident was “a terrible tragedy and we are deeply saddened.

“Carnival Corporation & plc offers our sympathies and heartfelt condolences to all of the Costa Concordia guests, crew members and their families,” the company said. “Carnival Corporation & plc and Costa Cruises are committing our full resources to provide assistance and ensure that all guests and crew are looked after.”

Carnival said there were 3,200 people and 1,000 crew members on the Costa Concordia, which the company said was on the first day of a seven-day cruise on the Mediterranean Sea when the accident occurred. The captain of the ship reportedly left the scene of the accident and is being detained by Italian authorities because it is a crime to abandon ship there.

The company said Monday that its priority was “the safety of our passengers and crew” but reported that the Costa Concordia was expected to cost the company $85 or $95 million in fiscal 2012.

“A damage assessment review of the vessel is currently being undertaken to determine how long it will be out of service,” the company said in a statement. “The vessel is expected to be out of service for the remainder of our current fiscal year if not longer.”

Congress passed a law in 2010 dealing with cruise ship safety, but the measure, dubbed the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, focused more on the behavior of passengers aboard ships than the vessels themselves. The law requires cruise lines to provide video surveillance to monitor for crime and provide medical personnel on board to deal with the possibility of sexual assaults.

The law also required cruise ships to be fitted with peep holes in passenger’s rooms and side rails that were at least 42 inches high. But it does not address the responsibilities of cruise ship captains when accidents occur.

The sponsor of the bill, California Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), called the cruise ship measure “a significant milestone for American consumers and the traveling public,” when it was signed by President Obama. She has not yet commented publicly on the Costa Concordia accident.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/1095-other/204341-cruise-line-industry-defends-safety-record-after-six-die-in-italy-disaster

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday recommended a nationwide ban on all portable electronic devices in cars except GPS units.

The transportation board is moving away from its previous piecemeal approach aimed at convincing states one-by-one to enact laws barring texting and other forms of cellphone use in cars. More than 30 states have already banned either texting-while-driving or talking without hands-free devices, but the NTSB is now asking all 50, plus the District of Columbia, to ban everything other than devices “used for driving tasks,” like a GPS.

The new approach is likely to set off a battle in Congress and on K Street and intensify a nationwide debate on what drivers should and should not be able to do while driving. But NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said Tuesday it was “time” for a nationwide ban.

“This is the culmination of 10 years of investigative work on all modes of transportation,” she told reporters during a press conference.

“We see distracted driving as something has been more prevalant across society and been the cause of many accidents,” she continued. “We’re in an environment where new devices are coming out every day and people are tempted to update their Facebook status or send a tweet as if they were sitting at their desks, but they’re driving a car.”

Although the agency is calling for a national ban on portable devices, it is not pressing for congressional action. Hersman said the NTSB is focusing on convincing the states that have not enacted bans on distracted driving to do so, and the ones that just outlawed texting or talking on handheld phones to increase their prohibitions.

“States are the ones that can pass laws, they can enforce those laws and in many cases, they are responsible for educational campaigns,” she said. “I know this is an issue the Hill is following, but we make recommendations to states generally when it comes to highway safety.”

Hersman acknowledged there was likely to be fierce opposition to the proposal, saying “this is a difficult recommendation.”

“But it’s the right recommendation, and it’s time,” she said.

Before Hersman’s news conference Tuesday afternoon, the NTSB became making the case for nationwide ban on one of the very social networking websites it said was causing more drivers to be distracted by their cell phones, Twitter.

“No call, no text, no update is worth a human life,” the agency said Tuesday in a tweet.

“Turn the portable electronic devices off before turning the car on,” another series of Twitter messagessaid. “The price for staying connected while driving is too high. Hang up the phone. Life is far more precious than a phone call or a playlist.”

The NTSB’s move to call for a nationwide ban comes after the agency investigated a crash in Missouri that involved a school bus. It found that a pick-up driver who was killed in the accident had sent 11 text messages in the minutes leading up to the fatal crash, in which he and a high school student were killed, the NTSB said.

Transportation officials have previously encouraged states to pass their own distracted driving laws, though they had not specifically called for a nationwide ban.

In a recent speech at the National Press Club in Washington, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood noted that the number of states with distracted driving laws had increased from 8 to to more than 30 in his time in office.

The sponsor of a bill in Congress that would enact a federal ban on cell phone use, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), said that while she supported the NTSB’s goal of a nationwide ban, the most effective way to achieve it was working through Congress.

“We can’t wait for multiple states to act, and we can’t afford to have a patchwork of laws where some Americans are more protected than others,” McCarty said in a statement Tuesday.  “The simplest, safest solution would be a single national standard, like we have for blood alcohol content.  Texting while driving can be as dangerous as drunk driving, and getting more and more common every day.  All Americans deserve to be safe no matter where they’re traveling.”

Meanwhile, the lobbying group for the cell phone industry, CTIA-The Wireless Association, said Tuesday that it was against a ban on “manual texting,” leaving open the possibility that it would support technologies such as voice recognition and built-in onboard computers in newer cars.

“Manual texting while driving is clearly incompatible with safety, which is why we have historically supported a ban on texting while driving,” CTIA President Steve Largent said in a statement released on the organization’s blog.

“As far as talking on wireless devices while driving, we defer to state and local lawmakers and their constituents as to what they believe are the most appropriate laws where they live,” he said.

Largent said the cell phone industry “remains focused on educating consumers about their responsibilities when they’re driving, especially inexperienced drivers,” pointing to recent public service announcements that have been released by CTIA.

He said cell phone companies have been working with transportation regulators, and would continue to do.

“In regards to NTSB’s recommendation number 12, we have always encouraged the industry to continue to develop new technology-based tools and offerings that are affordable and consumer-friendly that would create safer driving,” he said. “The industry constantly produces new products and services, including those that can disable the driver’s mobile device.”

Hersman said Tuesday that automobile manufacturing groups like the Auto Alliance of America have released guidelines for car companies to follow as they build cars with increased computer technology, “but those guidelines have not always been followed,” she said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/automobiles/199057-ntsb-wants-nationwide-ban-on-cell-phone-use-in-cars

The National Labor Relations Board has dropped its controversial case against airline manufacturer Boeing, which had become a lightning rod for conservatives.

The labor board argued for much of the past year that Boeing decided to locate a new plant to build its new 787 Dreamliner jets in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, in retaliation for strikes by unionized workers at its existing facilities in Washington state.

But the panel appeared to bow to political pressure Friday, saying that a deal the company reached this month with the International Association of Machinists to build a different type of airliner, the 737 Max, in Washington satisfied its concerns.

“The charge was always about the loss of jobs in the Seattle area,” NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon said on a conference call with reporters.

With the new deal, “jobs are secure in the Washington area, and also jobs are secure in South Carolina,” he said.

Conservatives had argued that the labor board was trying to dictate to Boeing where it could do business, but Solomon denied that accusation.

“This case was never about the union or the NLRB telling Boeing where it could it put its plant,” he said. “It was about retaliation.”

One of perhaps the most vocal GOP critics of the NLRB’s case against Boeing, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R), strongly disagreed.

“The NLRB’s dismissal of charges against Boeing only after union approval of their new contract only confirms the charges were a politically-motivated negotiation tactic, not a serious complaint based on merit,” DeMint said in a statement. “Unfortunately, real and serious damage to America’s competitiveness has already been done. A precedent has been set by the NLRB that they will attack businesses in forced-unionism states that try to create jobs in right-to-work states.”

“Those on the NLRB board who led this attack on workers’ rights should resign immediately,” DeMint concluded.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) took a similar stance Friday. Issa, who had issued subpoenas to the labor relations board for documents related to its case against Boeing, declared the decision to withdrawl the case a “victory,” but he promised to continue his investigation.

“NLRB’s record of rogue action and lack of transparency with the public and Congress in this case–and in others–has raised serious questions that remain unanswered,” he said in a statment.

Asked to weigh in on the NLRB’s decision to drop the case as he walked to the White House Friday, President Obama said according to pool reports “I’m glad people are gonna be working.”

Although Boeing had already opened its new facility in Charleston, S.C., the NLRB case could have forced it to move production of the 787s back to Washington state.

Boeing spokesman Tim Neale said about the move, “Yesterday, the International Association of Machinists withdrew its charge pending before the National Labor Relations Board. The Administrative Law Judge, before whom the case was pending, then granted the NLRB’s request to remand the case to the NLRB Regional Director for dismissal. This morning, the Regional Director of the NLRB approved the withdrawal of the IAM’s charge, and the NLRB dropped the case.

“We have maintained from the outset that the complaint was without merit and that the best course of action would be for it to be dropped,” Neale said in a statement. “Today that happened. Boeing is grateful for the overwhelming support we received from across the country to vigorously contest this complaint and support the legitimate rights of businesses to make business decisions.”

The case riled Republicans in South Carolina, and with the state holding a crucial early primary in the race for the GOP presidential nomination next year, it became a talking point among candidates painting it as an example of what they argue is government overreach under President Obama.

Solomon said Friday he “hoped” the criticism of the labor board would recede with the withdrawal of the Boeing case, but he also said it was possible the NLRB would make the same decision in a similar circumstance.

“If we’re faced with a similar situation, we might well have a complaint,” he said.

But on Friday, Solomon praised the deal between Boeing and the IAM union that led to the controversial complaint being dropped.

“It’s a win-win for the company, it’s a win-win for the machinists, and it’s a win-win for the economy,” he said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/labor-employment/198399-labor-board-withdraws-boeing-complaint