“We have great faith in our Senate champions but need to see how the act plays out in the Senate over the next few weeks,” Gaudet said, adding that he expects the “number of House co-sponsors to rise dramatically by the end of the month.” But the House bill is missing the key endorsements of the House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s top brass, like aviation subcommittee heads Reps.Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), as well as Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and ranking member Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.). Mica has not yet offered a firm stance on the legislation — and Costello and Petri are content to let the FAA take the lead, for now.

“He and I both discussed the bill and we have not co-sponsored the bill. And the reason that we haven’t is that we want to let it play out,” Costello told POLITICO of his analysis with Petri. The bill which pits labor interests against business doesn’t stand much of a chance of passing in a gridlocked legislature, Costello said. But he did indicate that those interested in ending the cargo carve-out might be pleased when the FAA completes its review.

“They are going to take some action and those supportive of the House bill, I suspect that they will be pleased in the end,” Costello said. “I think the FAA will end up taking action before” Congress. However, at the time the cost-benefit review initially was announced, an FAA spokeswoman told POLITICO that the reason they were reviewing the analysis was because the cost piece figures were on the low side. If that still holds true, that means any potential revision would likely be in favor of the original conclusion that resulted in the carve-out.

In any case, Cravaack and Bishop aren’t ceding anything to the feds, instead meeting privately last week with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta to talk about fatigue rules. Each side laid out the road ahead, but not in any coordinated fashion. “Cravaack and I are going to continue carrying forward with that even if the department in effect reaffirms the exclusion,” Bishop said of his legislation.

Cravaack, vice chairman of the aviation subcommittee, said he was encouraged the Senate put out a sister bill and even intimated that the tenuous surface transportation conference could include his legislation, though that would be an extremely heavy lift. (Beyond the fact that the provision wasn’t included in either chamber’s transportation bills, anything related to aviation would reasonably be considered outside the scope of the conference.) Costello also threw cold water on that idea.

The Minnesota freshman said he has also requested to see the FAA’s cost-benefit data that led to deciding the rules would be too onerous to cargo pilots — and hasn’t gotten his hands on it yet. Cravaack’s calls for “one level of safety” aren’t doing much to convince the Cargo Airline Association. “‘One level of safety’ is simply a sound bite, which doesn’t mean much  of anything. Because all segments of the industry are slightly different and you can get to that level differently,” Alterman said, explaining that cargo pilots generally fly fewer hours than passenger pilots to begin with. At big carriers like FedEx and UPS, the pilots have access to “hotel-like” sleeping facilities, Alterman added, and smaller carriers have access to some form of rest areas, too.

Alterman also boasted of the cargo airline industry’s sterling record, saying the National Transportation Safety Board has only attributed two accidents or incidents in the past 30 years to fatigue. “The bottom line is in the last 10 years, we’ve flown over 8 million operations in the industry with absolutely no fatigue-related incidents. None. And so I understand what the unions are saying,” he said. “I understand what their argument is. I just don’t think that there’s any need to change the rules for our guys. We simply operate differently.”