When Congress this week introduced a bill with language that would fully fund a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) preclearance facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport, our elected representatives’ decision to take the side of a state-owned foreign airline over U.S. airlines and their workers came as a disappointment but not a complete surprise.

The bill, which is expected to be taken up by Congress in the coming days, illustrates legislating at its worst—an egregious example of federal lawmakers’ giving priority to influential foreign businesses rather than to an industry that fuels our nation’s economy, supports our national security, and provides tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.

With the language in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, Congress will fund a CBP preclearance facility to be operated at a location where no U.S. air carrier flies and where only a state-owned foreign airline will benefit from the U.S. taxpayer-funded program. At the same time, the facility will drain resources that should be marshaled to reduce current customs lines at major U.S. airports that inconvenience U.S. airlines’ passengers and may prompt international travelers to choose destinations other than the United States.

In Washington, D.C., ALPA pilots and staffers have galvanized broad industry and labor opposition to the CBP facility. The strong bipartisan disfavor was reflected by the more than 130 co-sponsors of the Meehan-DeFazio bill (H.R. 3488), which would have required the U.S. government to perform an analysis of a facility’s potential effect on U.S. airlines and CBP staffing before it proceeds with any plans.

ALPA has long recognized that many foreign airlines possess the bankrolls to wield formidable influence among Washington, D.C., policymakers. This latest vote is simply fresh evidence of the vital importance of ALPA’s efforts to reshape the narrative on Capitol Hill. ALPA will redouble its force and fortitude in leading an industry-wide charge to halt this facility and, more broadly, to redirect the U.S. government to put its policies firmly behind the U.S. airline industry and stop abetting our competitors.

ALPA is also seizing the leadership role in defining our industry’s response to a global threat and defending the U.S. airline industry and its employees by taking on emerging business models designed by foreign companies to allow them to unfairly compete against U.S. airlines in the global marketplace.

In both legal action and news media outreach, ALPA continues to amplify its call for the U.S. Department of Transportation to flatly reject Norwegian Air International’s foreign air carrier permit application because the company is simply seeking to dodge its national labor laws and regulations to unfairly gain an advantage against U.S. airlines.

Despite being based in Norway, NAI has applied for an operating certificate in Ireland. It appears that NAI’s flight crews will work under individual employment contracts that are governed by Singapore law and that have wages and working conditions substantially inferior to those of NAI’s Norway-based pilots.

In all our efforts, ALPA is underscoring the many questions that the NAI scheme raises, such as: which labor laws will apply to NAI’s cabin and flight crews? Which regulatory framework will apply and which country will have oversight over NAI’s operations? How can U.S. airlines that operate under one regulator, one certification agency, and one set of labor laws have a fair fight when they compete economically against foreign airlines if they are allowed to shop for the most advantageous laws and regulations?

ALPA will bring all of its resources to bear to stop NAI’s labor-shopping business model. If this model is allowed to succeed, it will threaten the future of the U.S. airline industry and the jobs of U.S. pilots. We need every ALPA member in this fight.