[Noozhawk’s note: A study by George Mason University professor Stephen Fuller indicates 74,000 workers are impacted by the loss of jobs resulting from the FAA shutdown. The actual number of laid-off workers is 25,000, not 74,000. An earlier version of this article was incorrect and has been revised below.]

Shortly after Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, held a news conference Thursday morning at the Santa Barbara Airport to call for an end to the Federal Aviation Administration shutdown, the congresswoman got her wish, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announcing that an agreement had been reached.

The end of the 12-day political impasse means 25,000 transportation and construction workers nationwide will return to work, and 4,000 FAA employee furloughs also will end.

“The long-term bill has run into some snags, so we need to enact short-term legislation until we can work out these snags,” Capps said at the morning news conference.

By the afternoon, congressional leaders had reached a deal to fully fund the administration until mid-September.

But “important differences still remain,” Reid said in a statement.

The agency’s budget expired July 22, after the last of 20 short-term extensions ran out, and only essential employees worked during the partial shutdown.

Capps said the bill wasn’t passed because Republicans broke precedent by using an extension bill to enact policy changes on which an agreement hadn’t been reached.

“Unfortunately, our Republican majority in the House broke with this precedent and rammed through the House the bill with extreme policies that they knew the Senate would not pass,” she said.

Two unresolved issues include subsidies for small airports and changes to rules that allow workers to unionize.

Capps said that each day the shutdown lasted cost the government about $30 million.

“Ironically, it cost the federal government around $200 million every week just when we’ve all been talking about the challenges the deficit creates on the economy,” she said.

Before Reid’s announcement, the Santa Barbara Airport would not have received a $2.7 million grant to be used for putting the finishing touches on the new terminal. The airport had planned to use its reserves to fund the last phase of the project — moving the historic tower and terminal in front of the new terminal to serve as offices for patrol and parking management. The last phase also includes short-term parking construction.

Now, the grant will be used to complete the $55 million terminal, and the airport can use its reserves for other projects.

Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider said the project will employ about 300 construction workers.

The new terminal will still open its gates to arriving flights Aug. 17. It will send off its first departures Aug. 18, and the last phase of the new terminal will be completed next year.

Projects also will continue at airports throughout the Central Coast, including the air traffic control tower seismic retrofit and runway extension at Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo’s rehabilitation project.

— Noozhawk staff writer Alex Kacik can be reached at akacik@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.