Private jet owners can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now, as the Senate has tabled the comprehensive aviation-funding bill that would have increased taxes paid on fuel for business jet flights. Proponents of the bill could not gather the necessary number of votes to end the debate on the floor of the Senate and move it forward to an actual vote. Sixty votes were needed to move it forward but it received only 49.

Presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Barack Obama, D-Ill. and John McCain, R-Ariz. were among the nine Senators who abstained from voting. Their votes, along with the others who were absent, would not have been enough to obtain another result. Voting on the measure was, with the exception of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., divided along party lines with Democrats in favor of moving the bill to a vote, and Republicans opposed.

In addition to sweeping reforms of FAA funding and operation—considered vital in light of the nation’s increasingly decrepit air traffic control system—one of the purposes of the bill was to place a higher burden on private jets and away from the languishing commercial carriers. The bill looked to be going forward last week when a majority of Senators had overcome a major stumbling block by agreeing in principle to raise the private jet fuel tax from 21.8 cents per gallon to 36 cents per gallon.

In fact, the bill’s demise comes not from any major disagreement over the aviation issues it was meant to address, but from discord over various riders unrelated to FAA funding that had been attached. Among these were plans to divert $5 billion to pay for highway construction as well as an allowance for New York City to retain a portion of federal receipts for the city’s own capital projects.

With the bill apparently dead-on-arrival, it seems unlikely that any comprehensive aviation funding will be passed before a new president takes office next year. Until then, FAA funding will come from a temporary extension of existing taxes.