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THE BENEFITS TO PASSENGERS AND PRIVATE PILOTS FROM INCREASED FUNDING FOR
AIRPORT IMPROVEMENTS AND AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL MODERNIZATION
Thursday, February 11, 1999
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Aviation
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John J. Duncan, Jr. [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. DUNCAN. We are going to go ahead and call the committee to order. We were waiting for Mr. Lipinski, but I am told he is on his way. But, we are supposed to be out of this room by 1:00 today, so we need to go ahead and get started.
We have some very important witnesses here today. And first of all, I would like to welcome our Administrator of the FAA, Jane Garvey. Mrs. Garvey has done an excellent job at the FAA under very difficult circumstances, and we certainly appreciate what she is trying to do, and the difficult job in managing bureaucracy with approximately 50,000 employees.
Unfortunately, we do continue to hear stories about the modernization projects that are overdue or over budget, the Wide Area Augmentation System, WAAS, and the STARS program, both have had a lot of problems and cost overruns, and most of those problems started long before Mrs. Garvey got there, but those are things that we do need to continue to work on and try to speed up or save money on or both, if at all possible.
The Management Advisory Council created by Congress in 1996, which was supposed to help address some of the agency's problems, has still not been appointed yet by the Administration, and we need some attention to that.
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Earlier this week, I was fortunate to accompany Mrs. Garvey and Mr. LoBiondo, a member of this subcommittee, on a tour of the FAA's technical center in New Jersey, and we were pleased to see some of the fine work that is being done there. So, I am hopeful that the FAA's air traffic control modernization will stay on track, and I know that the Administrator is committed to this as well.
We heard yesterday from some of the people, particularly those involved with general aviation and some of the other associations, and we were told that by the latest estimates the airlines are losing about $2.5 billion a year due to delays that, apparently, are caused by problems with the aviation infrastructure, including the need to modernize our air traffic control system. So, modernizing this system is crucial if the public is to have a safe and efficient aviation system.
I would like to also welcome the other witnesses here today. Carol Hallett, has done has an outstanding job of leading an often divided and sometimes maligned airline industry, and certainly is a really fine person to head that industry and has done a lot for her members since she has been at the helm of the ATA.
And Pete Ruane did as much as anyone to help us unlock the Highway Trust Fund last year. Hopefully, he will help us do the same for the Aviation Trust Fund this year, that is a goal of, I think, most members of the committee.
So, I appreciate the time all of the witnesses have taken to come before us today. I know all of them have very busy schedules, and we are pleased to have all of them here. And at this time, I would like to yield to any other members who have statements at this time.
Mr. Boswell?
Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, thank you and thank you for holding this hearing. This is not exactly on the agenda, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to call something to your attention, Mr. Chairman. It is not on the agenda, but there is a number of us that has got a conflict time after time between our transportation committee meetings and agriculture. I have sent a letter around, and I think between both sides, it is about 10 of us in that situation, and I am just hoping that somebody could start coordinating a little bit to see if we could avoid that head-to-head. This is a terribly important matter, and of course as you know, that we have a crisis going on in Agriculture. And so, I am torn, but anyway, I want to call that to your attention.
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And secondly, I want to thank those who have gone ahead with trying to restructure the fairness in—those of us who are in those pockets of pain area, so let us keep up the good work, and I am looking forward to being with you next week.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you. We are going to try and work on some of those areas, and I am not on the Agriculture Committee, so I was not familiar with the conflicts there, but we will try to work around that as much as possible.
Mr. Metcalf?
Mr. METCALF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you for holding this hearing today. This is the third hearing on aviation priorities this year, and I commend you for your leadership.
I would like to welcome Administrator Garvey. I am looking forward to your testimony today, especially the PBO aspects of the proposal. I am also interested in your views of the Aviation Trust Fund in H.R. 111. I believe this legislation is vital to the long-term health of aviation.
Finally, I would like to welcome all the other witnesses. Your input as users of the aviation system provides us as members invaluable insight into the needs of this industry.
Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. I yield back any time.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much.
Mr. McGovern?
Mr. MCGOVERN. I just want to welcome Ms. Garvey and Mr. Murphy, and just thank them for their assistance to me. As you know, Mr. Chairman, I have a crisis in my district. I have a medium-sized airport that is desperately trying to be viable and effective, and it is essential to the economic development of the City of Worcester and all of central Massachusetts, and both Ms. Garvey and Mr. Murphy have been very helpful to me, and I appreciate that, and I look forward to hearing from them.
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I would just point out to the committee that one of the reasons why Jane Garvey is such an effective and exceptional FAA Administrator is because she is from Massachusetts.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DUNCAN. I had a feeling that was coming.
Mr. MCGOVERN. And, you know, I needed at some point to make that point. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. OK, thank you very much.
Mr. Pease?
Mr. PEASE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am looking forward to this hearing if only because I have had the opportunity to have conversations with Ms. Garvey and she has been incredibly responsive and very helpful to me personally and to my staff. I know there are more challenges than a person can be expected to address with the amount of resources you have. But, I want to say publicly what I have said privately, which is that I have found her and her staff to be incredibly responsive to me and my mine. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Menendez?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you first on the aggressiveness of this schedule.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you.
Mr. MENENDEZ. It is clearly sending the message that we think aviation is the premiere issue this year in transportation, and I appreciate your focus, the way you have done it.
And I want to welcome the Administrator, as well. I want to echo my colleague on the other side of the aisle about your responsiveness. It is really refreshing to find someone who is as responsive as you have been in difficult issues, not necessarily in easy issues. And we look forward to continue working with you. As you know from your visit, the Newark International Airport, which is in our district, we have many issues, some of them which I hope to talk to about as the hearing progresses. And certainly as we restructure and have the opportunity to move on aviation this year, hopefully, we can find a solution to some of those issues, air traffic control issues, and others. So, thank you again for the responsiveness you have, and I look forward to your testimony.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cook?
Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really have no opening statement. I just want to congratulate you for getting this under a quick start and I look forward to all the issues that we face on this very important committee this year.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Berry?
Mr. BERRY. I will just associate myself with the remarks that have already been made to congratulate you and the Administrator.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Dr. Cooksey?
Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am indeed glad that we are having this hearing. I quite frankly, in my particular town and the airport that I occasionally fly a plane into or bear into, and probably create chaos, we really have a good airport, we have good runways, good instrument approaches, and a brand new tower, a relatively new tower. The problem is that when our flying public drives into the airport or goes out, they get wet, they get their feet wet if it is raining, they get their heads wet if is raining. We need some improvements around the airport itself. They fly in and fly out safe, but they need some improvements. I have a lot confidence that Ms. Garvey will get this done. I have been impressed with her hands-on management. I think that she has been very effective in spite of being from Massachusetts.
[Laughter.]
Mr. COOKSEY. And I think she is effective because she is a woman. I think we need more women in Congress, more women as administrators, because women—in my experience—are a lot more focused and do a lot of better jobs than a lot of men. I am not trying to get the women's vote, if it is not obvious.
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[Laughter.]
Mr. COOKSEY. But seriously, in my interaction with FAA, you have demonstrated a very sensible hands-on approach to management, and we need a lot more of that in Washington. It is manifest in the improvements, I think, with the problems that have been solved with the air traffic controllers—and I know a lot of the air traffic controllers, and they are fine people, professionals, men and women doing a good job, and I feel like you have helped rectify that problem.
The other area, I have full confidence that I can go out and fly a plane or fly in a plane and I am not worried about the Year 2000 problem. I think that again because the management of Mrs. Garvey, the flying public will be in good shape. So, we are glad to have you hear today. Glad to have your input.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Lampson?
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It really is a pleasure to be on this committee, and I thank all of my colleagues for that opportunity, and I wanted to echo everything that has already been said. We, too, have had some problems in my district relating to airports, and we most appreciate the responsiveness of you and your people. I just wanted to find out, John didn't mention, I don't think, that you are also an aviator. Do you have a Cessna 182, do you not, or was there another Jane Garvey, because there was an article in one of the last issues of AOPA about the experiences of owning a Cessna 182 and it was signed Jane Garvey?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, I wish I could take credit for that, Congressman, but——
Mr. DUNCAN. He is confusing you with Amelia Earhart.
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[Laughter.]
Mr. LAMPSON. At any rate, welcome——
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. LAMPSON. —and we look forward to you participating in this hearing. Thank you very much.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. LoBiondo?
Mr. LOBIONDO. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you once again for taking the time to visit the FAA technical facility in my district with Jane Garvey on Monday. And Jane, thank you, as my colleagues have indicated and the chairman has indicated, for your leadership in so many critical areas, whether it is air safety, air security, all on the cutting edge that we are providing technology for the rest of the world under your leadership. I know I am very proud of the work that is being done by the FAA in my district and nationwide, and it is attributed to you and the folks who work with and for you, and I look forward to a working relationship, along with all the issues that the chairman will be identifying, and want to thank you once again.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Baldacci?
Mr. BALDACCI. Thank you very much. I just want to compliment you, Jane, and be able to work with you, and appreciate your responsiveness to the issues that our office has referred to you. So, I am looking forward to continuing that.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you very much.
Mr. BALDACCI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you.
Mr. Sweeney?
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[No response.]
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. DeFazio?
Mr. DEFAZIO. Is this opening remarks?
Mr. DUNCAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. DEFAZIO. I will skip those. I have questions later. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right.
Mr. DEFAZIO. I welcome the Administrator.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Mica?
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this hearing. I am pleased to see the Administrator here today and look forward to working with you as I return to this panel. However, I feel a little bit like some of the issues that are a part of that movie, Groundhog Day, where you repeat the day over and over again, particularly, when it comes to improvements in air traffic control modernization. When I was on this panel back in 1993, we didn't have the job done, and it looks like we are still tremendously over budget, and behind schedule, at the peril of our traveling public.
I am also concerned, Mr. Chairman—just for the record—about the path that FAA has taken us down: our local airports' and others' tremendous expenditures for security, some of them an over reaction to incidents, and in particular I will cite the TWA 800 where we went off on a helter-skelter, instituting every type of requirement for our airports. They spent fortunes, millions and millions of dollars to comply with ridiculous, not well thought out security measures. Some that are still in place include, I believe, some of the dumbest questions ever asked to the traveling public when you go up to the airline ticket: who packed your bag and have they been with you all the time? There has never been an incident of domestic airline terrorism. Not only does that violate our civil rights, but it is also an imposition on the traveling public, and the FAA spends an inordinate amount of money and resources enforcing this when other things could be addressed.
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For example, I don't think they have done enough to check repeated airplane maintenance failures. And I have addressed a communication to the Chairman and others about this where we have planes going down because we haven't spent the time or resources, and some of those, I believe, as I said, are misdirected.
Furthermore, the lack of utilization of some of our regional and local airports where we are spending huge amounts creating these huge hubs that are one of the most costly and ineffective uses of taxpayer dollars for transportation, and destroying what used to be a very convenient and cost-effective airline transportation service to the public across the country.
So, other than those couple of items, I think we are in pretty good shape. I look forward to working with you and resolving those. And thank you for a few minutes to explain my few positions here.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Doolittle?
Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a new member of this subcommittee, I look forward to hearing the testimony. Unfortunately, I am not going to hear much of it because I have a subcommittee on the Census, of which I am also a new member and they have a mark-up right now. So, I will apologize in advance. I will be here for as much of it as I can be, but I am going to have to go back and forth. I do look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, and with the panel that is before us.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you.
Mr. Sherwood?
Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It looks like we are on our way to the year of aviation, and as a new member, I am delighted to have an Administrator that comes with the reputation and recommendations of you, Jane Garvey, and I am interested to hear what you have to say about small airports. We have an airport in Williamsport that we need some work done on, and I would like to hear what you have to say and discuss it with you.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton?
Ms. NORTON. I have no opening remarks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Miller?
Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really don't have any opening remarks. I have a lot of reading to do it looks like, obviously, and probably going to generate questions from that, but I am looking forward to your discussion.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you.
Mr. Kuykendall?
Mr. KUYKENDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to speak. I am, technically, the newest member, I think, to this committee. I represent the Los Angeles International Airport, as well as several other general aviation airports, and so your issues are very important to me. I also have another subcommittee hearing shortly, so when I get up and leave, it is not because of lack of interest in your subject, and I am sure we will have more discussions as I already have had with your folks in my district because of the expansion of that airport and what is going to happen with the expansion and traffic patterns alike. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much.
We will start now with the first panel. And the first panel is as I have previously mentioned, the Honorable Jane F. Garvey, who is Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. She is accompanied by Mr. Patrick V. Murphy, who has been here on many occasions, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs in the Department of Transportation. We are very pleased to have both of you with us once again.
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And Mrs. Garvey, you may begin your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JANE F. GARVEY, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY PATRICK V. MURPHY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR AVIATION AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Ms. GARVEY. Well, good morning, Mr.Chairman and members of the subcommittee. first of all, thank you for the words of support and encouragement, and I do want to say, at the outset, I think your tributes to me should really be directed at the good people of the FAA who work so hard to develop and deliver a wonderful transportation system. I do have a longer statement that I would like to enter into the record, and then just make some very brief opening remarks.
I simply must begin by expressing my appreciation and my thanks to you, Mr. Chairman, to Members of this Committee, for your continued strong support of the FAA and its programs; in particular, your support as we continue to correct the Year 2000 program, and your support as we move ahead in modernizing the air traffic control system. Without the encouragement, without the leadership of this Committee and Congress, those initiatives simply would not be possible.
On Monday, Mr. Chairman, the Administration transmitted to Congress this legislative proposal on aviation. I would like to highlight some of the provisions of our proposal that are important to the FAA, and I believe important to the future of aviation. At the outset, I would also like to acknowledge the unique situation we find ourselves in this year with the AIP and Aviation Insurance Program scheduled to expire on March 31, 1999. Both Congress and the Administration know how vitally important these programs are, and we applaud the expeditious congressional action in both the House and the Senate.
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Let me also say that the Administration's proposal is just that. It is a proposal, a starting point to begin the discussions to frame the issues, issues that we know are critical to the safe and efficient growth of the system. The fact that we understand the areas that require focus, the fact that we are willing to work with each other to reach agreement gives us great confidence that our final legislative product will be one that responds to the vibrant and dynamic growth of this industry.
Over the past several years, the Administration has worked with Congress to give the FAA the reform tools it needs to do business differently. Both personnel and procurement reform have been extremely beneficial. They have allowed us to do business differently, they have allowed us to speed delivery of critical safety systems, and they have allowed us to attract and to hire some skilled professionals. But one major element still outstanding in our efforts to become more business-like is a different funding mechanism.
The Administration's proposal, once again, includes the creation of a performance-based organization or PBO within the FAA. That is important—the PBO still remains within the FAA. It is built—as Members of this Committee and as the Chairman will remember—on a proposal that was submitted by NCARC, the National Civil Aviation Review Commission chaired by former Congressman Mineta.
The PBO is designed to make the FAA's air traffic control system highly responsive to users' needs, to make it more accountable. The ability of the PBO to be responsive, to be accountable, will depend on it being funded by user fees that will not simply become subject to the current budgetary scoring mechanisms. The Administration's proposal provides for a dollar-for-dollar offset beneath the discretionary caps for the new user fees receipts. Further, we advocate collecting the level of funding through user fees and taxes each year that we will need for the succeeding year. Implicit in this approach is the agreement of the Budget and Appropriations Committees, that with the FAA paying its own way, funding will be made predictably and at levels received in the Treasury the prior year. Any expenditure of the aviation taxes and fees for any other purpose would be prohibited.
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Now, part of the Administration's proposal is a shift away from the general funds support to full reliance on funding from users, whether in the form of excise taxes or new user fees. It is difficult to shift from reliance on the general taxpayer for a portion of the FAA's expense, but we do think this shift will help create a funding stream that responds quickly and reliably to aviation's growth. Congress works very hard every year to achieve this goal under present budgetary processes, but it becomes more and more difficult as aviation competes with other worthy programs and other worthy initiatives.
Turning for a moment to airport funding, in light of changing capital needs of the Nation's airports, our draft bill proposes a combination of $1.6 billion of funding for the Airport Improvement Program, with an increase in the cap on Passenger Facility Charges or PFCs from $3 to $5. We believe this approach, in addition to several of our proposed formula modifications, strategically targets the spending of Federal dollars to areas that need it. Large and medium hub airports that choose to impose a $4 or $5 PFC would be required to forego 100 percent of their entitlement funds. Those turnback dollars would be targeted to smaller airports. In that way, we think airports of all sizes will benefit from the increased PFC, which can generate as much as $900 million annually in vitally needed capital improvements.
AIP funds for large and medium hub airports will be limited to meeting Federal mandates, such as meeting safety, security, and environmental requirements, to noise mitigation, to planning, and to new capacity. Increased PFCs could be used for broader purposes as is currently the case, including terminals and other landside access needs. The total effect of the modifications we have proposed is to get more money to small airports that traditionally have fewer funding options, to better target scarce AIP dollars, and to increase PFCs to finance needed capital improvements.
Finally, the Administration proposal includes several positions designed to enhance competition and to improve air service to rural areas. Joining me today to answer any questions that you may have on those provisions is my colleague, Patrick Murphy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs in the Office of the Secretary.
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Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared remarks with just one final note. This proposal is not an end in itself. It is a vehicle to frame the issues to begin the discussion, and we believe with the leadership of this Chairman, with the leadership of this Committee, and with the leadership of Secretary Slater, we can and we will create a foundation, a platform to serve aviation, and more importantly, to serve the American people.
Thank you very much.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Ms. Garvey. I am going to go for the first round of questioning to the new vice-chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Sweeney.
Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Ms. Garvey.
Yesterday in my opening statement, I explained that I represent an area like many of my distinguished colleagues that is serviced by a smaller airport, and that my primary concern was two-fold. One, was access to service, and two, the cost of service. And I relay that a flight that I take every week to go back and forth from Washington to Albany was more expensive than a flight to Brussels, and therefore, it has had a devastating impact on the economy, the region that I represent. And my interests are to see if we can do something about that in the short term. So, a couple of questions in that area, and hope that you can help clarify some of those.
In yesterday's testimony, we heard from a number of witnesses who agreed or disagreed on the notion of how to best service smaller airports, whether it was AIP funding or PFC funding. One witness, in particular, believed that PFC funding was a greater benefit to larger airports rather than smaller airports. Do you agree with that?
Ms. GARVEY. We have certainly heard that, Congressman, from a number of the larger airports and smaller airports. That is why the proposal that we have put forward in its draft form allows for an increase in the PFCs. For those large hub airports that choose to raise it, their AIP entitlement would be turned back and then that money would be targeted to the smaller airports. We think that that does get at some of the needs of some of the smaller airports that we have heard so much about. That kind of targeting of resources from our prospective is certainly worth a discussion in Congress.
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Mr. SWEENEY. So, a raising of the caps will have a positive impact on small airports, and that would be a core element of addressing the needs of smaller airports?
Mr. GARVEY. We think it will help considerably, Congressman. It would go a long way in addressing those important needs.
Mr. SWEENEY. In addition, the Administration is proposing new user fees in place of traditional general fund payment, and this may be a simplistic analysis on the part of a freshman on this committee. But, at a time when I am very concerned—and I think most Americans are very concerned of the price of airfares—I have a natural resistance to the increase of any fees in any particular area, and I think, really, what we need to do is kind of reallocate our resources and our priorities. What are the fees proposed to do, what are the fees that are being proposed, and what is the intent of the Administration with those fees?
Ms. GARVEY. Congressman, we know this is going to be a very hotly debated issue, and it is one that has people who have very strong opinions on both sides. Our intent here is to link the services that we provide in the air traffic control area—and that is really what we have focused on, the air traffic control area—to link those services to user fees. In other words, we would be determining user fees based on what it cost to provide those services.
Let me also, though, make a point that I think is important, and that is that we are working very hard on a cost accounting system, because fundamental to any good user fee structure, is a very sound cost accounting system. We are doing that now, and I will tell you, the industry has been very strong in saying that—and I think rightly so—the FAA needs a cost accounting system not only as a management tool, but also as we move into a user fee structure. So, that is point number one, we need a good strong cost accounting system. We are working on that. Point number two would be to link the services that we provide to the fees that we impose.
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Mr. SWEENEY. And you have to understand that part of that contention relates to the Administration's proposal that at the same time while we were raising user fees, we are going to eliminate general fund contributions. It is a double whammy, especially if you are concerned as I am on the issues that I have already talked to you about. And the fundamental question I have, and I think many of the members here have is what is wrong with using the existing taxes, supplementing them with the historic general fund contribution allowing you to get your cost accounting system in place, allowing us to really begin to specifically address and target the issue of airfares in smaller markets, and fully funding the system that way?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, certainly that is one point of view, and that is certainly something we would like to work with Congress on. I think, again, from the Administration's point of view, the dilemma that we find often is that we are often in competition with other very worthy programs. That is certainly one issue we will try to move much more towards, a sort of self-sustaining system, if you will. But again, we are willing to work with Congress. We know that this is a starting point, and want to explore whatever makes sense, frankly, and whatever the final outcome to advance the needs that we have.
Mr. SWEENEY. From the FAA's prospective, those competing programs, could you tell me what they would be?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, I think those kinds of decisions will be made when the Administration submits our budget, Congressman. As you know, we go through the OMB process and there are many other programs in other parts of the Administration still trying to stay within the framework of the balanced budget. I think balancing all of those programs does make it difficult. We offer this proposal as one starting point and one way to begin, and we will see what develops this year.
Mr. SWEENEY. I thank you.
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Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. SWEENEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield my time.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Sweeney.
Mr. DeFazio?
Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I am always happy to see the Administrator. I noted that the Administrator has booked a flight on New Year's Eve. I was wondering, what time does the flight land, because your testimony said New Year's Eve. That is not the problem, is it?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, we are actually trying to book it at a time that crosses all of those wonderful midnight time changes.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, I appreciate you——
Ms. GARVEY. Would you care to join me, Congressman?
Mr. DEFAZIO. —doing that. No, I think not.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DEFAZIO. I will be at home firing up my generator.
[Laughter.]
Ms. GARVEY. You have little faith.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DEFAZIO. In any case. In the submission, I was one of the principal authors of the original PFC and strongly support it, but I am a little concerned that in the distribution of the funds we seem to be pushing toward more reliance on the PFC and the other taxes that are squeezed, as we are moving things toward general operations, and I was noting in your testimony that apparently you are proposing to go to $1.6 billion for the Airport Improvement Program out of all those other taxes collected. Is that correct?
Ms. GARVEY. That is correct, Congressman, yes. That is with the increased in the PFCs, as you have noted.
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Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. The GAO identified $2.78 billion per year of high priority projects that would increase airport capacity, plus the others that are needed to maintain infrastructure, safety, security, and environmental needs. Don't you think it would have been more appropriate to come closer to that target?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, we believe that increasing the PFC will allow us to get much closer to the target that GAO has identified, and it is really the combination of PFCs, a combination of AIP, a combination of other revenues that airports have that I think will eventually allow us to address those needs.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. But, I guess I am looking at the wide array of other taxes and then when you look at high priority items, I have perhaps a slight disagreement there. A further question on that same issue. What about—I don't see in here, I don't have the total budget breakout—how are we doing on contributions from the military?
Ms. GARVEY. I would have to get the actual number. We do have a cooperative arrangement with DOD.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Right.
Ms. GARVEY. But I would like us to get that.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Because in the past, we have been concerned whether or not they were reimbursing the general aviation system whether we were getting reimbursed on the civilian side for the total burden placed on the system by the military side, and our conclusion was we were not. And I am wondering, if you are proposing increases in contributions from the military side?
Ms. GARVEY. We are not proposing increases, and I can get you the actual numbers that we have today, but we are not proposing any increase to DOD.
Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. Of the huge increases-the military budget can't withstand a small increase or paying their fair share of the costs to civilian aviation in the determination of the administration, I guess? I don't want you to comment on that characterization.
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[Laughter.]
Mr. DEFAZIO. I think that will be worthy of some further discussion. I also note with interest that you did, although we are not doing the hearing today on airline competition, I would be remiss if I didn't raise some concerns in that area, and you did open yourself up to it by mentioning it in your testimony. You mentioned, when talking about basically high density airports, that the Administration is proposing an agreement that has to do with carriage in terms of baggage, interline agreements, those sorts of things, that would require the larger airlines to accept that carriage and have the interline agreements on baggage and tickets and those things from the smaller airports. Is that correct?
Ms. GARVEY. I am going to turn this over—and I am delighted to do this, by the way——
Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes, OK.
[Laughter.]
Ms. GARVEY. —to Patrick Murphy, who can answer those questions.
Mr. DEFAZIO. He will have to be brief. I am going to run out of town soon.
Mr. MURPHY. Congressman, we do have a proposal on the mandatory interlining, but I have to say it is very limited. It only involves the largest hub airports that are dominated by a single carrier and service that would radiate out to very small communities from those hubs.
Mr. DEFAZIO. OK, thank you. To the Administrator or Mr. Murphy, obviously, you have perhaps followed the chairman's press conference. I warned the airlines, I have been warning them for years, that they weren't just fighting with me or consumer advocates anymore, that they had managed to pretty much upset most of the people in America. Business executives are now beating on my door, and they don't beat on my door very often to complain about the airlines as are the Chambers of Commerce and others. We have some problems, I think, that go beyond your minimalist approach, particularly, from mid-sized small airports. I am proposing some additional measures, the chairman has proposed additional measures that go to passenger rights. Is the Administration looking at a more than this minimalist initiative on competition and consumer and passenger rights?
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Mr. MURPHY. Very much so, Congressman. We have a number of initiatives, not just in this bill, but that we have been working on for over a year now, including competition guidelines to make sure the system remains competitive, including eliminating the high density rule to allow more operations at Chicago and New York, which would benefit many communities around the country, including a series of listening sessions. The Secretary has held these listening sessions, the most recent one last Friday in Rochester, where we heard an earfull about competition, and so, we are very active and have been and will remain so in this area.
Mr. DEFAZIO. I have a number of proposals of my own, and I would like to forward them down for your perusal and consideration, and I, actually, was talking to the Secretary last night because of the freighter grounded in my district, and he said he has some interest. He has expressed an ongoing interest, and I appreciate that in consumer rights and competition we are reaching a crisis point. I just want to say that we can either proceed in an orderly fashion, or we are going to see a consumer revolt, and members of Congress pushing a number of initiatives. The airlines have just abused people.
This is my last statement, Mr. Chairman. The other day I changed my schedule at the last minute because I had to stay in Washington an additional day, and I found out I was paying 400 percent more to fly to my district than to Portland, Oregon on one day's notice on a government fare ticket, a new record for United Airlines, four times as much to go the same distance across the country, just a difference between going to a monopoly mid-sized airport, and a larger competitive airport. We have to do something about that that is a little more ambitious than what you have proposed so far.
So, I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. Mica?
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Mr. MICA. Thank you. Administrator Garvey, as I had mentioned, I was on the panel back in 1993 and the DSR was coming. At that time, I went out to briefings with IBM and they said it was on its way.
Ms. GARVEY. Right.
Mr. MICA. And then at that table set the head of Loral, and he told me it was on its way, and the problems were worked out, and I guess the project went to Martin, and now it is with Lockheed-Martin. Could you tell our panel—I know you are concerned about modernization and getting these things in place—how many are supposed to be installed?
Ms. GARVEY. They will be completed, I believe, by May of 2000. We are putting in 1 or 2 a month, 22 in total.
Mr. MICA. 22. So we have 4 in, and 18 to go.
Ms. GARVEY. That is right.
Mr. MICA. I will still be in Congress, and I look forward to when they are all installed.
Ms. GARVEY. That is going to be an exciting time.
Mr. MICA. Tell me about the STARS program--the status of the STARS program, another program I think that is important again, as far as modernization and knowing about safety, about our planes in the air. Where are we on that?
Ms. GARVEY. STARS is one of the platforms, as well. DSR, STARS, and HOST, are the three fundamental platforms for modernization. We have a very active group of controllers and managers who are working this week and next week in the FAA Center. We are in the software development stage; we have it down to one fundamental issue. It is an important and a critical issue, and we couldn't ask more from the controllers than they have given in terms of trying to resolve it, so next week is the critical time for us.
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Mr. MICA. How long have you been working on that?
Ms. GARVEY. You know, STARS certainly started before I came here. I would have to go back and get that for you. But, if I could speak about the three platforms, because I think it is important, and I think your point is really well taken.
DSR then is on schedule, with one or two systems going in every month between now and the next 18 months. We will have that in place. HOST, which is the heart and soul of the air traffic control system, is going to be replaced and will be in place by October before 2000, by the way. This schedule is very important for us. STARS is the one that we are struggling with a little bit right now on the performance issue, the one issue I talked about. But again, to give credit to the air traffic controllers, they are working very hard with us to resolve that issue and to PASS, as well.
Mr. MICA. Do we still have many of our safety incidents with radar on the ground—and I guess we don't have as good a system as they do in Europe. I was told that as far as ground radar, the Wide Area Augmentation System, I understand there are additional delays in implementation of that?
Ms. GARVEY. The Wide Area Augmentation systemplan, yes. It was announced, I believe, about a month ago, a new schedule for WAAS.
Mr. MICA. What is that?
Ms. GARVEY. Wide Area Augmentation System.
Mr. MICA. No, but what is the current schedule?
Ms. GARVEY. The current schedule takes us to a year from this June, for Phase One.
Mr. MICA. Now, is that a 14 month delay?
Ms. GARVEY. That is a delay, Congressman, but again, let me just point out, when we began that program, it was very high risk, about 80 percent risk. We have taken another look at it, and we have looked at it with the industry as well, with ATA, and the general aviation industry, and we all believe that this is a better course of action.
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Mr. MICA. As you know, and I stated in my opening statement, my concern is that we put the resources where we have people dying. If we look at TWA 800, we still don't know exactly what caused that, but we do know it was a maintenance breakdown. If we look at most of the crashes, the Pittsburgh crash, which we spent a lot of time investigating, if we look at the other deaths that we have experienced in air crashes, a lot of it is due to mechanical failure.
I presented the Chairman and the Committee with a small investigative report, which my local paper did on maintenance problems, and airplanes with repeated mechanical failures are going down, and people are dying from it. The average age of our commercial airlines that you get on is pretty old, and I believe, that rather than having people use their resources as a gestapo at the airport on some of the indoctrination of the passengers, that we should utilize some of those resources for increased maintenance inspection and getting the planes out of the sky that aren't safe. Is that a reasonable approach?
Ms. GARVEY. We actually agree with that approach, and as a matter of fact, on April 4 of last year, we announced a safer skies agenda, which is data driven. In other words, we are establishing actions, interventions, if you will, based on the safety data that we have before us. So, we are really looking at root causes and making determinations about what actions to take, based on the data that is available to us. That is a different approach for us, but I believe, as you have indicated, that is the right approach.
Mr. MICA. I think my time has expired. If it hasn't, the last question will be, are you prepared to present to Congress a plan so that we can better utilize our regional and our local airports with the limited dollars that we have from the Federal Government towards those investments?
Ms. GARVEY. I think some of the changes, Congressman, that we have suggested in our proposal for AIP distribution will help in that. I think some of the re-targeting of Federal dollars from some of the small and regional airports will help with that. And, I believe, as you have suggested, that we really need to think of a system for, not just the large hub airports, but also the small and regional airports. They are very critical, very important, as well.
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Mr. MICA. Thank you.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Before we go on with any further questions, we have been joined by the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Shuster, and we are always pleased to have him here with us. And I would like to call on him for any statement or comments that he wishes to make at this time.
Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much, and we certainly appreciate your being here. I have said many times, this is the year of aviation and ocean shipping. It seems that the aviation part of it has been picked up more than ocean shipping, but that is OK. We are really going to focus on both of them and aviation is absolutely crucial. It is a great success story, and yet with that success, comes problems, and we have a responsibility to deal with those problems. I certainly think you are doing an outstanding job down there——
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SHUSTER. —at the FAA, Ms. Garvey. That is not to say I don't have great concerns about some of the problems down there, but I see you as part of the solution rather than——
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. SHUSTER. —part of the problem.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SHUSTER. But I think we better focus on those problems to get them resolved. I am also deeply concerned about the Administration's proposal to eliminate the general fund, because I think we have a general government responsibility to provide various types of service for our aviation community, particularly, when you consider the Defense Department uses the facilities, and I think there is a responsibility there.
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So, I spoke with Secretary Slater just the other day about the whole issues, and we are going to work with you, so we can bring about the needed improvements to our aviation system in America, and I certainly look forward to working with you on that, and I hope you might see your way clear to be supportive of our passenger bill of rights, which I think is long overdue. And in fact, I guess when Penn State joined the Big 10, they made it the Big 11, but I think they still call it the Big 10. So, I guess I will still call our passenger bill of rights, you know, the Big 10 items in that bill of rights. But this morning, I have had an additional thought, which is since some of the problems that are caused really are caused by the airports and not by the airlines themselves, it seems to be where Federal funds are involved, we should hold the airports accountable, as well. And so, I am drafting an 11th item for our bill of rights, which will reflect the importance of bringing the airports into this so that they too, will be more responsive to the traveling public, so I look forward to all of us working together, and some have told me, that the next time I go to an airport to board a plane, I may need a bullet proof vest, but that is OK. We look forward to doing what is right for the American people. Thank you.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Chairman Shuster.
Ms. Danner?
Ms. DANNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As the phrase goes, all I know is what I read in the paper which, of course, is attributed to one of our great humorist of the past. So, let me share with you an article from the Kansas City Star that has me concerned, and that is where the president of the Professional Airway System says that the FAA has not thoroughly tested the new equipment that you are placing in Olathe, Kansas—which is, of course, a suburb of Kansas City—and has not provided adequate training for the technicians who will maintain the equipment. He is very concerned. As a matter of fact, the lead paragraph, which is not a quote from him, says that the FAA is risking lives by moving ahead with this modernization program.
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I would like for you to tell me your version of his version of what is going on, because if he is concerned about the people who are going to operate the equipment being inadequately trained, then I think we have a real problem.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you very much, Congresswoman, and it is good to see you.
Ms. DANNER. Good to see you always.
Ms. GARVEY. Let me make two comments about that. First of all, I haven't seen that article, in particular, and I will make sure that I focus on that when I get back. But, just two general comments. One, we will never, never compromise safety. We simply will not compromise safety. We will do whatever it takes to make sure that people are trained properly or have the right equipment. We will not compromise safety. And certainly, new equipment, whether it is HOST, whether it is DSR, or whether it is STARS, we are building in the training component. We are entering into memoranda of understanding with our unions on what kind of training it should be.
I will tell you generically, however, I am concerned with the whole issue of training, and I have talked with Mike Fanfalone a great deal, who is the union president about this, and he is absolutely eloquent in talking about the kind of training we need for the future. I think as we move forward in budgetary requests, we have got to make sure that we are building in the right kind of training for the future.
I will get back to you on that particular issue. We will not compromise safety, and I know some of these issues are being also discussed through our negotiations with PASS right now, as well. We are in contract negotiations and, I think, deal with a number of these in the contract negotiation, as well.
Ms. DANNER. Well, I appreciate that very much. I actually have left a mark-up in my other committee to come here because I am so concerned about this, and if you will have a member of your staff meet me——
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Ms. GARVEY. We will.
Ms. DANNER. —as I exit to go back to mark-up, I will be glad to give them this article and save them the time of finding it.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Ms. DANNER. Always good to see you.
Ms. GARVEY. Good to see you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Dr. Ehlers?
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a host of questions, and I will squeeze in as many as I can.
Let us, first of all, address your comments about user fees. And I have a number of concerns about that, one of which is that I think they are intrinsically inefficient. It takes time to assess them, time to collect them, time to audit them, just a lot of time involved. I oppose them for much the same reason I oppose toll highways. In that case, you put in a lot of extra concrete, the toll booths, personnel, and the roads are no better. In fact, you travel slower because you have to stop and pay a toll periodically. I worry about getting into the same situation with user fees.
Several questions, first, if we unlock the trust fund, or in other words, put the trust fund off budget would it still be necessary for you to charge user fees?
Ms. GARVEY. I am not sure. To give you a very honest answer, I am not exactly sure if that would fully solve the problem. It is certainly something that I can go back and have staff provide accurate information for you on. Again, I think the cost accounting is still important regardless of whether we go to user fees or not.
Mr. EHLERS. Yes.
Ms. GARVEY. I always want to add that. Again, the concept is to link the services to the actual fees. I know that is the approach that is taken in many European countries, as well. But, let me go back and ask that and get you an accurate assessment of that.
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Mr. EHLERS. I would appreciate in that. I am interested in the overall efficiency——
Ms. GARVEY. I understand.
Mr. EHLERS. —and I have no objection to the cost accounting, but you want to try to keep your system as efficient as possible.
Other areas of concern relating to that, what is going to be the impact during recessions? Your costs are going to be fairly constant, but if there is less use, your revenues go down. What do you do in that situation, if you are tied to user fees? General aviation is a major problem. I know they are generally cut out of any plan for user fees. At the same time, you know as well as I, that 10 or 15 years down the line, people are going to say, hey, why should they get it free when the others don't, and you are going to have constant battles on that.
Another line of questions. Back in 1995, we changed personnel and procurement procedures for the FAA, and you noted in your testimony this has been a great improvement. My question is how great of an improvement? Can we do more? Should we do more? And I am prejudiced, I think we should, particularly, in the area of electronics, computers, and so forth. You know as well as I that under the old procurement systems, we could never buy a current computer because the process was so long and that computers were obsolete by the time that we got them delivered. I assume it is somewhat better, but still, I am not sure that we are really up to snuff on this.
The only concern relating to that is we put so much time and effort into planning a system, and don't seem to recognize that many of these systems have to be upgraded by the time they are fully installed. In other words, this is a continuous process——
Ms. GARVEY. Absolutely.
Mr. EHLERS. —this is not a one-time process, and I think any further reforms we do, should recognize that. I recognize the FAA's budget, just as many budgets, is fixed to a large extent—probably 85 percent of your budget is fixed—and so it is very hard to tack on new initiatives. I think we should also have things such as WAAS, STARS—everything you are coming up with—as not as a new program which is a one-time thing, but rather a continuous function, part of your fixed costs just as everything is, so we don't have this difficulty that we constantly have of keeping up-to-date, which is led to as the infamous tubes, electronic tubes you have instead of transitors—all these sorts of things.
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I appreciate any of your comments about that, and in particular, what additional reforms you think are necessary to really allow you to operate the FAA efficiently.
Ms. GARVEY. Well, thank you very much for this opportunity. First of all, in terms of personnel or in terms of procurement reform, where I think we have seen the most benefits, we are seeing about 50 percent shorter time to get a contract put in place and out the door, which has saved us some money. What we don't know yet and what we are still evaluating, is what has been the long-term benefits, both cost savings and also efficiencies, but we are doing that kind of monitoring with GAO, if you will. But I think our early assessments have been very positive, and I think GAO has been fairly positive, as well.
In personnel reform, I think we are a little bit further behind, but still have accomplished a lot. We have been able to recruit some very talented people to the agency because of the added incentives we have been able to provide, and that has been extraordinarily helpful. We just added a CIO to our ranks last week who is terrific, who is coming from the private sector from AT&Twith a tremendous amount of experience. We have brought on board some very talented technical people in our research field who I think are going to be very helpful, as well.
We have got a pilot program going right now. We are seven months into it with one part of our organization to monitor and to see what happens when you link performance to pay; a wonderful program, a wonderful pilot, and we are learning a great deal from it. We hope to be able to transition to that in the Year 2000 for all of the agency, and we will do it incrementally.
But, I think probably in both of those areas, there is more that we can do. You asked what further reforms would be necessary, and we still believe the funding flexibility, the funding reform, whatever that package ends up being, would be extraordinarily helpful. We are taking the approach that you have suggested in your question, which is, rather than trying to look at large programs that are the end result and not doing anything until you can get that in place, we are taking the building block approach. So, even when we put STARS out, it may not be the final package, but it is a good building block, a good tool, and we will add to it as we learn more and as technology improves. That building block approach, which is a different approach for us at the FAA, I think, is the way we can go and the way we can get the technology out there. Thank you.
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Mr. EHLERS. I think this is extremely important. And let me just add one last question on that score. As you know, the Mineta Commission recommended that this become a performance-based organization. How far would you say along that track are you at this point, and do you hope to become completely performance-based with total flexibility? Is that your ultimate goal?
Ms. GARVEY. I think that is, Congressman, the ultimate goal. Let me say, our proposal before Congress does call for the PBO, but I also should say, there is a lot we are doing, even separate from the legislation. In other words, we are establishing performance measures and getting a great deal of support and help from the industry, as well. Performance measures established around delays, performance measures established around efficiencies, so that we are moving in that direction. The cost accounting system is another tool we can use in moving much more towards a performance-based organization. So, we are taking those steps which, I think, are very, very important regardless of where we end up with the legislation.
Mr. EHLERS. One final comment. One of the previous questions, I was referring to the fact that people are dying. I want to congratulate you on a total fatality free year this past year, the first one I recall in a long time, and I congratulate you and the FAA and everyone else who had anything to do with that. And, of course, the Congress should take credit for that too, since we always get blamed if things go wrong.
Ms. GARVEY. I was just prepared to give you full credit.
[Laughter.]
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. You are very wise.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Ehlers.
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Mr. Menendez?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Administrator, I have a series of questions that are somewhat provincial in nature, though they undermine the need for some of the reasons we are talking about resources. So, to the extent that you could answer yes or no where appropriate, I would appreciate it. If you feel you have to expound, you know, fine. But if you could give me some yes or no's in some of these, I would appreciate it.
Ms. GARVEY. I appreciate that.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Let me set the predicate that, as you know, some citizens in New Jersey have endorsed a flight redesign plan, called ocean routing, as a means to decrease aircraft noise in New Jersey. They insist you undertake a live six month testing of the ocean routing plan. And last year, I initiated a New Jersey congressional delegation letter urging you to undertake a comprehensive airspace redesign for the Nation's busiest airspace, which is over the New York, New Jersey area, and I firmly believe that that ultimately holds the best hope for Newark airports making operations more safe and efficient, and for providing a quieter environment for the residences of New Jersey. Now, I understand your resources, both personnel and financial, are stretched thin.
So, the first question I have, is do I assume correctly that in order to conduct a live ocean routing test, you would have to divert resources, both people and dollars, away from the airspace redesign project to design and implement the ocean routing live test?
Ms. GARVEY. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. MENENDEZ. And by diverting those resources, can I also assume that the design and implementation of the airspace redesign project would be significantly delayed not only for New Jersey and New York, but also for the entire Nation?
Ms. GARVEY. It would be delayed, yes, Congressman.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Do I also correctly assume that a six month live test of ocean routing just doesn't get instantly started because all of the air routes in and out of New Jersey and New York would have to be accommodated, or altered, I should say, to accommodate the test?
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Ms. GARVEY. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. MENENDEZ. And lastly, it is my understanding—I don't know, you may not have this in your possession—but, in a supplemental draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Expanded East Coast Plan prepared for the Department of Transportation and the FAA, which is reviewing the East Coast Plan in the area, that report said, among other things, that the New Jersey CAAN proposal would increase noise by 5 decibels or greater for 10 times the number that can be said to have experienced similar increased in noise from the implementation of the East Coast Plan. It further went on to say that in addition to the noise impacts of that proposal, the proposal has substantial adverse safety and operational impacts, citing at least 9 points within the State, and 45 points in the additional area around the State, where safety margins would be reduced to unacceptable levels.
It further went on to say that aircraft departing Newark to fly the same path for 75 miles before air traffic controllers could direct the aircraft to resume their normal course creating 35 minutes on the average of airport departure delays between 7:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. in the evening, and it further went on to say that this does not even test the questions of the requirements which would be considered portions of the proposal outside New Jersey and below 3,000 feet in terms of noise problems.
Has anything changed for the FAA since you issued this report?
Ms. GARVEY. Nothing has changed, Congressman. We still stand by the EIS.
Mr. MENENDEZ. All right, so then based upon that, is it my understanding because of those reasons, that the FAA continues to oppose live testing of the ocean routing plan?
Ms. GARVEY. That is correct, Congressman. We still believe the best solution is the redesign of the airspace in the New York and New Jersey area, and we are very committed to that effort.
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Mr. MENENDEZ. All right, thank you. Now, let me ask you, turning to a different topic, there was a recent article in USA Today, which I would like to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, about the aging air traffic equipment at the Terminal Radar Approach Control Center—which we in the area call TRACON—which covers the area around Newark Airport. It points to the need for immediate air traffic control equipment upgrades for a center that serves the busiest air space in the country. Also, Newark has been waiting to get an airport surface detection equipment, three or four years, and this ground-based radar system would help air traffic controllers reduce delays on the ground when visibility is restricted.
Can you give for me a sense of when we will be able to equip the air traffic controllers in the New Jersey and New York air space with the tools, and in what time frame are we talking about in this regard?
Ms. GARVEY. It really depends on the equipment, but let me talk about DSR, rather, and HOST. HOST, which is so critical to our efforts in this area, will be installed and operational very soon. In fact, I am looking at Mike McNally who would also know about the timing. We were both in New York this month to commission HOST. How are you doing, Mike?
[Laughter.]
Ms. GARVEY. So that is going in very quickly. DSR will be, and I will have to get back to you with the schedule for that, but that again, is within the next year's time frames.
We are also—and this has been a series of very, very good meetings—in the last year, we have been meeting every three months with our folks from New York and New Jersey, as well as with Continental, who has a real interest, obviously, up there as well, and some of the other airlines, to talk about what are some short-term improvements we can get in place there to deal with some of the issues. It is such a constricted difficult area, and we have got some short-term solutions, even for this summer, having to do with how we route the air traffic control that I think are going to be very helpful. So, DSR, HOST, very soon, STARS longer, and I don't know what the answer is going to be on STARS, but we are working very hard on that.
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Mr. MENENDEZ. Could you get back to us on the DSR and give us a time frame?
Ms. GARVEY. Yes. I know it is within the next year, but I would have to get you the right month.
Mr. MENENDEZ. I appreciate your responsiveness. Thank you.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Menendez.
Mr. Hutchinson?
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing, and welcome, Ms. Garvey.
Ms. GARVEY. Nice to see you again, Congressman.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I enjoyed being with you at the dedication of the Northwest——
Ms. GARVEY. I did, as well.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. —Arkansas Regional Airport. Thank you for coming down for that, and I want you to know, it has really been going terrific for the airport.
Ms. GARVEY. Great.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. The airlines have been doing very well there. So, thank you for your support of that. I want you to know, I have been over the Senate for a while, and I have used up all my hardball questions. All I have got is softball ones left.
Ms. GARVEY. I am very grateful for that, Congressman.
[Laughter.]
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I wanted to ask you about your proposed legislation. It is my understanding that the proposed re-authorization bill that you have, includes provisions to address the problem of fraudulent aircraft parts, and that is in the proposal?
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Ms. GARVEY. It is actually, I believe, a piece that has been referred to Justice, as well, yes.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. But it is in the re-authorization, but it has been referred to the Judiciary Committee, part of that?
Ms. GARVEY. Yes, it is. But, I guess that piece is referred to Justice. I am turning to my experts here. Do you want to answer that one?
[Laughter.]
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have gotten some information from the Justice Department on that aspect of the bill, and so, if you are not prepared to address that, that is understandable and fine. But, I think, the problem of fraudulent aircraft parts is very significant, and I congratulate you for addressing that in this legislation. I think it would be an amendment to title XVIII, and so, I would assume that—I am just not sure whether it is actually in this re-authorization bill that you propose, or whether it is a separate piece of legislation?
Ms. GARVEY. Pat has the answer.
Mr. MURPHY. There is a part in our bill, Congressman, that was drafted by our Justice Department, and it deals with penalties, both civil and criminal, for non-compliance on unapproved parts on aircraft.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. And maybe the chairman knows, is this a joint referral of this bill to this committee and maybe the Judiciary, because it would have been title XVIII?
Ms. GARVEY. It will go to Judiciary, I believe. Is that right? Congressman, let me just mention, though, on that, because I do think the whole issue of unapproved parts is critical and important, and we have had a very aggressive effort in the last couple of years—a separate office, as a matter of fact—on unapproved parts, working very closely with the law enforcement side of government, as well as with our own IG, and I think have produced some significant and important reductions of problems in that area. And I think, by all accounts, it has been an office that really has met with success.
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Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, I am glad you are addressing that, and I look forward to reviewing that in both committees. In regards to the user fee proposal and the movement in that direction, it is my understanding that you have drafted this legislation so it does not have an adverse impact on general aviation?
Ms. GARVEY. That is correct, Congressman. General aviation is excluded from the user fee piece.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Why are they still nervous?
[Laughter.]
Ms. GARVEY. It is probably best to ask—I saw Jack Olcott here a little bit earlier—but my sense is, I think they are concerned that it may be the first step, toward a fee system that could one day include general aviation. I think one of the other members mentioned that before. But, I am sure Jack will—he certainly told me—let the Congress know, as well. But, I think it is a concern and it may be a step in that direction, that even though they are protected now, it may be just a sort of foot in the door.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. In other words, it would be a good argument if we are going to a user fee system that, you know, maybe down the road, they need to carry some of that burden, as well. So, I can understand that concern, and I hear a lot of concerns about it from general aviation, but I am glad that it is not included in your authorization.
Ms. GARVEY. Absolutely.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Now, finally, the air traffic control delays, I understand, cost the airlines billions of dollars per year. Does your proposed re-authorization adequately address the problem of air traffic control delays?
Ms. GARVEY. I think the proposal, Congressman, allows us to move forward on an aggressive modernization program. I do want to emphasize that our approach—which I think really does help the airlines—and that is a building block approach. We want to put in place a building block now that will incrementally give us some very good results and very good benefits, and they will give them to us in the shorter term.
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Just one illustration. We have something that is called collaborative decision-making, and we work with the airlines, with the air traffic controllers, with the airlines, as well, in making decision. We use our command center in Herndon as kind of the center for this collaborative decision-making. And because of decisions that could be made quickly, just in time, airlines—I can think of one, in particular—that saved on a very, very bad snowy day, over a million dollars, and they saved it in reductions of delays, in reductions of fuel costs, and that was simply because we have the tools for collaborative decision-making, getting people to make a decision quickly, and to make the decisions that have had to be made.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. To what extent is a manpower problem with the air traffic controllers? I mean, is there more needs in terms of manpower, or is it more the decisionmaking process, and the fabrication on it?
Ms. GARVEY. Part of the contract that we agreed to with NATCA, gives us a firm number for air traffic controllers, and that is 15,000. That takes us through the next three years with a two percent growth after that. The air traffic controllers are, as part of the contract, taking on many more responsibilities, but they are doing that ably and they are doing that well. So, I think it is less a personnel problem and more some of the automation tools that we need to get into their hands to get the job done.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you very much.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Hutchinson.
Mr. Lampson?
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, I want to welcome Administrator Garvey and congratulate her on the good work that has been done, and I look forward to——
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Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. LAMPSON. —working with you and FAA as we work through the Airport Improvement Plan re-authorization. But, I do have a question on the passenger facility charges, particularly, as they relate to letters of intent.
Congress authorized PFCs in 1990 as an option for airports, giving them the choice of whether or not they should impose them on passengers. It is my understanding, that FAA's official position is that the authorizing statute does not provide for the FAA to decide discretionary grant or LOI applications on the basis of whether a community has imposed a PFC, and therefore, FAA is not permitted to do so. Is that correct?
Ms. GARVEY. Yes, that is correct. I am looking to my staff on that. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. LAMPSON. I believe that this subcommittee has been involved with this question before. It is my understanding that following the 1990 legislation that allowed PFCs, FAA officials were actually writing into letters of intent agreements that the airport would get no funding until it imposed a PFC. This committee took issue with that practice in the 1992 re-authorization bill, and specifically prohibited it. The committee added to the authorizing statute, a new provision, and I want to quote what it says: ''A letter of intent shall not condition the obligation of any funds on the imposition of a passenger facility charge.'' The committee report went on to say, ''airport sponsors have complete discretion to apply for PFCs. It was not our intent to have this discretion undermined by tying AIP funding to PFCs. This committee takes exception to linking a letter of intent with a PFC.'' I should add that this language was written by this committee back when Jim Oberstar was chairing the committee and Bill Clinger was ranking Republican.
So, I want to express my concern that although it may not be the official position of the FAA to decide the discretionary grant or a letter of intent application on the basis of whether a committee imposes a PFC, that it may have become an unofficial practice. Do you believe that that may still be a problem?
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Ms. GARVEY. You know, I am going to ask David Traynham, who was both part of the Committee at the time, but has now joined us. Perhaps he can speak a little bit more to this.
Mr. TRAYNHAM. Thank you, Congressman. We are administering the program along the lines that you have just read, in terms of the Committee report on that. So, we have expressed some concerns at times on how we allocate our resources, or whether that is the best way to approach it, AIP versus PFC. But, we are administering the program as you described.
Mr. LAMPSON. OK, will you make an effort to look into that more and see—let me mention a couple of things. I have a recently issued report from GAO, which lists all current LOI agreements that the FAA has entered into, 28 of them nationwide. And out of that 28, 24 are air carrier airports. And out of those 24, 23 are known to impose PFCs. The 24th is Anchorage, Alaska. I would just like to understand why there are virtually no non-PFC air carrier airports on the list?
Mr. TRAYNHAM. We will look at that. We will do an analysis of that and get back to you.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. LAMPSON. I would appreciate that. And just in closing, I know that these airports have the opportunity and do put a great deal of their local funds generated in some way or other, and this is just one means of being able to do it. I would hope that the policy would specifically say that the contribution of non-Federal funds to airport development would be just one of the criterias that FAA would use in judging a letter of intent application. The policy doesn't specify whether those locally generated funds are raised by the PFC or by local fees it charges or by other means. And it is fine for the FAA to require a local contribution, but it should be up to the local government to determine how the funds would be raised on the local level. So, with that——
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Ms. GARVEY. I appreciate that, Congressman.
Mr. LAMPSON. —I just want to thank you——
Ms. GARVEY. Good, thank you.
Mr. LAMPSON. —and I look forward to visiting with you more about this particularly matter.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you very much, Congressman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Lampson.
Dr. Cooksey?
Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two or three questions. Number one, when you put in these new systems that we are all anticipating with a great deal of excitement, do you feel that the modernization of these air traffic controller systems will reduce personnel costs? Basically, my question is, will the capital cost that you are going to have with these systems, reduce personnel costs, or will it increase personnel costs?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, let me answer the question, if I could, in two ways. First of all, the first phase of modernization, which is Free Flight Phase One, are really automation tools that the controllers can use, so I don't see any reduction. In other words, that 15,000 number with the 2 percent increase in the last 2 years of the contract really takes us 5 years out, and I think those are the right numbers. As a matter of fact, at one point, the air traffic controllers were talking about a number of about 18,000. We have arrived at that number, we are going to give the automation tools that we need. And really, Free Flight Phase One is what we are focused on.
Beyond the five years, beyond the next phase, if you will, of modernization, I think we have to look at that as we get further into that, and as we get to those decisions. I think what we are seeing is controllers and supervisors taking on more responsibilities, and that is, frankly, what allows us to reduce the number of supervisors to 10 to 1, it is what allows us to keep the number at 15,000 for the controllers, but the first phase, Free Flight Phase One, gives automation tools for the controller to do a more efficient and effective job.
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Mr. COOKSEY. Good, thank you. Currently, there is a report out there from DOT, the IG, that indicates that it takes longer now to fly certain routes for airlines passengers than it did say 15 or 20 years ago, and for 75 percent of the routes, it takes longer. Do you feel that the new systems will really enhance the free flight or say point-to-point flying as opposed to the hub-to-hub flying that we have now?
Ms. GARVEY. They're going to go a long way. I've very quickly looked at that report, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with it. But I notice, for example, one that jumped out at me was that to travel from Washington to New York really should take only about 38 minutes, but they have to build in much more time because of some of the delays. But we believe it will help considerably.
But one of the keys is the work that we're doing with industry. We've said to industry: 'We'll deliver the systems. What you need to help us do is measure the benefits, help us establish some metric so we know if it's really doing what we want it to do.'
Industry and Carol Hallett and her team have been terrific in working with us in establishing some real measurement, some metric, so we can say, 'Yes, these are the benefits that we thought we would get,' or, 'We're not getting what we should, so let's shift and not put as much into this particular tool.'
We think we are going to see some very significant benefits, but these next couple of years, as we get Free-Flight into deployment, that's going to be very important and very critical.
Mr. COOKSEY. Good. Do you think that the FAA has the resources, both personnel and administrative ability, to regulate and monitor a passenger bill-of-rights legislation?
Mr. COOKSEY. I'm a physician, and we went through a patient bill-of-rights legislation last year. There was a lot of skullduggery involved with that legislation on both sides by a lot of people that I don't really think knew what they were talking about—politicians, I'm referring to. But would we get into the same problem with a passenger bill-of-rights bill?
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Ms. GARVEY. Well, you know, I haven't had a chance to look at the bill, and I know for us in the FAA, the safety issue is really the critical one, but I don't know if Pat, who has to deal more with these issues, may have more to say.
Mr. MURPHY. Congressman, we are just beginning to analyze these passenger bills-of-rights that are being put forward, both in the House and in the Senate. In direct answer to your question, do we have the resources? We've already identified that as a concern.
Our consumer protection staff in the Department of Transportation amounts to seven people. There are 600 million passengers a year flying in the country, so that if we begin to impose more obligations for the airlines for each passenger, and we have to enforce that, our resources may not be up to that job, to say the least.
Mr. COOKSEY. You mean you don't think those seven people could handle those millions of passengers?
Mr. MURPHY. Two clerical and five professional people.
Mr. COOKSEY. Good. That answers my question. Actually, there were some groups that came in last year that had some other interesting proposals, and of course I would not question the proposal of my chairman, who I have great respect for, but you know, I'm still concerned about this. I know if I have problems with an airline, and I have had, I very quietly use market forces and switch airlines, and I still think that works. And then when an airline loses revenue because they're not delivering the same service, the same efficiency, the same safety, they re-evaluate where they are and they make decisions.
And I know there are a lot of gifted, talented people here that are legends in their own mind in the beltway, but I don't think that there are that many that they can regulate a program like this. And now that you tell me there are only seven people, that confirms my suspicion.
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Thank you, Ms. Garvey, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Dr. Cooksey. Mr. Traficant.
Mr. TRAFICANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join forces with my suspicious colleague from Louisiana on some of his comments.
Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you.
Mr. TRAFICANT. But Administrator Garvey, I want to start out with that it is really unusual for me to compliment somebody. I think you've done a good job. We've watched you come in; some people were taking a good look at you. And I think one of the reasons is—I don't know all of your staff, but I know three of them behind you, and I want to make mention of them. I think Suzanne Sullivan, David Traynham, and Mary Walsh are about the best you could have gotten from this place, and you did raid us and you've done quite well, and I want to thank them for all they have done.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. TRAFICANT. I don't know all of your other staff, but I'm sure they are equally as competent.
One of the concerns I have had since being on this committee, on all the respective subcommittees, has been safety, from surface transportation, aviation, et cetera, and the bulk number of tragedies result from controlled flight into terrain problems. And with that there have been some new advancements in technology, technology that I became aware of. I immediately addressed our chairman, who I have great respect for, and we both looked at it. It is enhanced visual technologies, and one of them is a laser visual guidance system.
And one thing we found out when we took a test flight—it was on a very, very foggy night. The weather couldn't have been worse—or better for such a test—and once they locked into that laser beam, they landed that plane exactly where they said they would, and on every flight that plane lands on exactly the same spot. Now the point I'm making is, all of these problems ultimately—these tragedies—result from, in most cases, that plane missing the runway.
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With that in mind, I was able to pass an amendment that this committee found favor with that would within 10 years mandate a retrofit of these technologies, which are very cost-effective, inexpensive, which pay for themselves, but at the least would have allowed the AIP funds to be used if an airport would so choose to upgrade and augment their systems that they have now with cold cathode lighting and this laser visual guidance system.
So with that in mind, I know that the FAA has been looking at it, but it seems that we seem to drag on things, and I think when it comes to safety we shouldn't drag. So I'm not so sure that this is as much of a question as it is, but I think you have taken leadership in a lot of these areas, and I am asking you to personally look at, research, evaluate, and investigate this technology advancement because I believe it will save lives.
It is not a cost factor to airplanes. It doesn't have to be put on the airplanes, so the manufacturers don't have to complain. It is a retrofit that can be put and used anywhere. NASA is already using it, the military is using it. I think the technology is already in place for helicopters; I can't believe why we're having such a fiasco over it.
So that's my question to you. What have you done on it? And how far away are we from looking at these types of safety technology advancements so that we can continue to ensure the good record that you have enjoyed, as others have mentioned?
Ms. GARVEY. Right. Well, Congressman, thank you. First of all, I think your point is so well-taken, which is that technology really is key. There are technologies out there that are not that expensive, that we can take advantage of and that we should take advantage of. We like the idea of certifying more of those kinds of technologies so that they can eligible for AIP's, but let me get back to you with a schedule of where they are. I know they have been working very hard with the firm to certify it so it could be eligible.
I appreciate, by the way, your invitation to really see it first-hand because I think there really is not a substitute for that, and I look forward to doing that. We'll get back to you with a schedule of where we are with the certification.
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Mr. TRAFICANT. We are looking forward to it, and we hope that Mr. Duncan and Mr. Lipinski can also attend that, but I won't belabor you any more questions on it.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. TRAFICANT. But Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that a number of the questions that I have that are technical and specific in detail be presented to this panel and the answers be made in a reasonable time and spread across the record.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, we certainly will do that, Mr. Traficant. We mentioned yesterday that you and I went out to Dulles and flew up and had the demonstration on a very foggy night, on the laser system, and it was very, very impressive as to the way it works. Mr. Sherwood.
Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Administrator Garvey, I would like to compliment you on your refreshing testimony. I'm impressed that the FAA, unlike so much of our Government, seems to be run in a business-like manner.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, sir.
Mr. SHERWOOD. And I would like to stress the economic impact that upgrading our medium and small airports will have in the area that I understand, which is the northeast. The business leaders, all the time, tell me that if we're to have effective entry into foreign markets and continue our export of high-volume goods, which produce the types of jobs that we need to raise families and prosper, that we have to have more good flights to get our people and our cargo in and out.
I think that's very important, and in that regard I would like to ask a meeting with you to discuss the approval of the plan for Williamsport Airport. We need FAA's approval so that we can move forward with that.
Ms. GARVEY. I look forward to that Congressman, and would like to do that very much. Thank you.
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Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Miller. Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I apologize to the Administrator and to Mr. Murphy and yourself for being tardy this morning, but fortunately I only have about 40 to 50 questions to ask over here, and it shouldn't take more than 3 hours.
[Laughter.]
I welcome the two of you; it's very nice to see you this morning.
We'll get off our first question for the Administrator. Administrator, could you please explain to the subcommittee some of the benefits of the new labor contract that the FAA and the air traffic controllers agreed to last year? What are some of the efficiencies that the new contract will produce for the FAA? How does the new contract help the FAA operate more like a business, which the Congress has been advocating for many years?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, thank you very much. First of all, as you know, Congressman, it really was a historic agreement, the first time we have been able to negotiate for pay. The fundamental principle in the NATCA agreement really is that the controllers have agreed to take on more responsibilities, and we have, I think, some very significant areas where that really has made a difference for us. They've taken on more responsibilities for more pay.
It is, in my view, gain-sharing in the best sense of the word. It is gain-sharing in the way that the private sector often talks about gain-sharing. For example, the provision that we've talked a little bit about this morning at arriving at a number: the controllers had talked very often a number as high as 18,000. We've got an agreed number, we're moving forward on that. We know it's 15,000 with the growth in the two out years—the last two years of the contract, but that in and of itself allows us to save a significant amount of money.
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We also have cost-saving in an agreement to eliminate the alternate work schedule. That gives us an opportunity to save on overtime costs. It gives us an opportunity to save on additional hires. The controllers also agreed with the FAA's ability to hire part-time controllers, again an opportunity for us to keep our costs down.
The controllers agreed to take on additional collateral duties—this is very, very important—these represent real productivity gains for us as we move forward with growth that's going to be significant. So we think it is a very significant, historic proposal. It's one that has given, we think, the controllers a well-deserved raise based on the increased productivity, based on the increased responsibilities that they have agreed to take on.
So, there is also an unspoken, I think, benefit to the agreement, one that's not written down. I was very eager to get beyond contract negotiations and into what I think is a real productive partnership. We have such extraordinary challenges ahead of us in modernization. We can't do it alone. We need to do it in partnership with the unions.
I will tell you, and I give Mike McNally and his team a lot of credit for this, but I think we've already seen a shift. We have a problem right now in STARS, but we're solving it together. It's not a them and us. We are doing it together, and I think that's really important. In my view, that may be in some ways the most significant part of this contract—that new found cooperation. And it's not that we won't have differences; we will. But I think, overall, that kind of partnership is good for all of us. Thank you.
Mr. LIPINSKI. I agree with you. I think the cooperation between management and labor is always enormously important if you're going to have a effective, functioning organization.
Switching from that to the lifting of the high-density rule, is there any safety reasons that you know of, Administrator, to maintain the high-density rule at slot-controlled airports?
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Ms. GARVEY. Congressman, there are no safety reasons. Again, that is something that we have looked at very carefully, and no safety reasons, sir.
Mr. LIPINSKI. And your—let's see. I think that the FAA is in support of raising the passenger facility charge, also?
Ms. GARVEY. We are Congressman, with the idea that at those large airports those entitlement monies would be turned back, and those would be targeted to the smaller airports.
Mr. LIPINSKI. And you said that if it is raised $4.00 or $5.00, then the larger airports would have to turn back their entire AIP money?
Ms. GARVEY. Their entire entitlement funds, yes; that's correct, Congressman.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Do you think that's fair? Right now they get 50 percent for $3.00. If they go to $4.00 or $5.00, they're going to lose the other 50 percent. Don't you think it would fairer if you let them raise it to $6.00 and then have to turn back their 50 percent?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, again, we're always willing to work with Congress on some of those issues, but I will tell you that in talking with some of the larger airports that flexibility is so important to them—frankly, more important, I think, than even some of the AIP dollars—and we did think it was a way to target some of those smaller airports. But, again, a good topic for more discussion.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Murphy, how are you today?
Mr. MURPHY. Fine, sir.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Good to see you. Mr. Murphy, would consumers benefit from lower prices if the high-density rule was lifted? And would competition increase at the airports, especially from new-entrant carriers? And do you have any estimate of those consumer benefits?
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Mr. MURPHY. Yes, sir. Both fares should decline and new entries should benefit. The last time we analyzed this, we estimated the benefit to the consumer of eliminating the slot rule at Chicago alone at $628 million per year.
Mr. LIPINSKI. What was that again?
Mr. MURPHY. $628 million per year.
Mr. LIPINSKI. That's not bad. I just wanted to make sure we got that one on the record and made sure there was no misunderstanding about it.
The noise issue is, of course, of great concern to communities around the airport. Didn't the Department of Transportation's 1995 HDR study show that the requirements for aircraft to meet stage 3 noise standards would reduce the population affected by noise around O'Hare Airport by 80 percent?
Mr. MURPHY. That sounds correct, and our studies showed that because of this phase-out of stage 2 aircraft that, even lifting the slot rules, the number of people experiencing noise will decline dramatically after the phase-out of the stage 2 aircraft.
Mr. LIPINSKI. And everything has to be stage 3 aircraft by the first of next year, correct?
Mr. MURPHY. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIPINSKI. And that's really thanks to the gentleman who just came in and sat down to my left over here, Mr. Oberstar, and I thank him for that, and I'm sure all of those people around O'Hare Airport and Midway Airport thank him also, and all of the other airports across America.
Do they have any airports in Minnesota? No, you're not allowed—it's not your time yet.
[Laughter.]
I think they still operate on dogsleds in Minnesota.
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Is it true that delays at O'Hare have gone down over 60 percent since 1989? And aren't there airports like Newark, San Francisco, and Atlanta that are not slot-controlled, which have more delays per 1,000 operations than Chicago's O'Hare Airport?
Mr. MURPHY. My data show, Congressman, that delays have been declining at Chicago, even as we have added some exempted operations. There are many ways to measure delay, but the data in front of me show that since 1993 delays at Chicago have been cut in half, even as we have added more exempted operations. You are correct; there are delays at other airports that have increased and are perhaps even greater than at Chicago and some of the other slotted airports.
Mr. LIPINSKI. And if you cannot provide it today, could you provide for the record all of the facilities and equipment improvements you have made at Chicago and the procedural improvements you have made to increase capacity at O'Hare over the past 10 years?
Mr. MURPHY. We will certainly collect that information.
Mr. LIPINSKI. You don't have that right at your fingertips?
Mr. MURPHY. We do not, sir.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Oh, I'm disappointed.
[Laughter.]
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Mr. LIPINSKI. Is there any particular reason that you want to—what you have suggested, what the Department has suggested, is allowing the commuter flights almost immediately—the year 2000—if we lift the cap? But you're really not allowing any other additional flights until 2004. Is there any particular safety reason, congestion reason, delay reason, for postponing it to 2004?
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Mr. MURPHY. No safety reason, Congressman, and no congestion reason. We thought we would start there because there has been such a demand of late for regional jet service into the slotted airports. Smaller cities see this new technology as a way to link them into these most important airports.
In addition, we know these aircraft are the quietest jets in the fleet and thought they would pose the least objection to those concerned about noise. That's why we selected regional jets to go in right away, but there was no congestion or safety reason why we selected it; it was merely a matter of the demand as we saw it.
Mr. LIPINSKI. But would all the jets becoming stage 3 aircraft by the end of this year, the first of next year—so all the jets flying into and out of O'Hare would be all stage 3 aircraft and there wouldn't be any additional noise pollution? I was just trying to get at why you put off until 2004 allowing anyone else to fly in and out besides the regionals.
Mr. MURPHY. Well, the regional jets are much quieter than the minimum of stage 3. They are quieter than any other jets in the sky, and so we felt, again, that that was a good place to start.
Mr. LIPINSKI. OK. But in 2004, the jets that would be allowed to fly into Midway, they would have the same noise decibels as any plane that would fly in there in the year 2000, other than these regional jets, correct?
Mr. MURPHY. Yes, sir. They will all be stage 3 at that time.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. LIPINSKI. If you're on my side, I'll yield. If you're not on my side, I don't think I want to yield.
[Laughter.]
But I will yield to you for your years of experience in the aviation industry.
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Mr. OBERSTAR. You won't know that until I ask the question.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, that's why I wanted to know beforehand.
Mr. OBERSTAR. The facts show a decline of about 50,000 operations annually at O'Hare due to a number of factors—larger capacity, larger-gauge aircraft, more international flights. Passenger traffic is up; operations are down. If from those facts, one could conclude that the noise budget at O'Hare has been substantially reduced and that there should be capacity for more growth and for a more accelerated schedule of eliminating the buy-sell rule for slots. Is that a fair assessment?
Mr. MURPHY. I was not aware, Congressman, that the operations were down. I know military operations are down at O'Hare, as the National Guard has moved out.
Mr. OBERSTAR. They accounted for only about 7 percent of total operations.
Mr. MURPHY. Yes, and I have not followed general aviation operations at the airport, but I know that——
Mr. OBERSTAR. Air carrier operations are down substantially, so it would seem to me that the noise budget, overall, is reduced just by the fact of operations today.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Reclaiming my time, I want to say that, as an impartial observer, Mr. Oberstar is absolutely correct.
[Laughter.]
Mr. LIPINSKI. Are there any other questions you would like to ask at the present time, Mr. Oberstar?
Mr. OBERSTAR. I just want to substantiate your case.
Mr. LIPINSKI. That's why I just said, ''Are there any other questions you would like to ask at the present time?''
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Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence. I thank the Administrator and Mr. Murphy for being here, and I will yield back the balance of the no-time I have remaining.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Lipinski.
Administrator Garvey, much of the administration's proposed legislation is based on this increase in the PFC's, and you know that there is both strong support for increasing the PFC's and strong opposition to increasing the PFC's. If the PFC's were not increased, what would be your recommendation at that time?
Ms. GARVEY. Mr. Chairman, do you mean in terms of the level for AIP funding?
Mr. DUNCAN. Right.
Ms. GARVEY. You know, without going back and looking at some real analyses, I certainly would say, instinctively, that the AIP funding should be higher. At what level? I would like to think about that and perhaps enter that into the record, but it certainly would seem as though increasing it would be important.
Mr. DUNCAN. You know that yesterday former Secretary Skinner told us that when the PFC's were originally proposed they were to be a supplement to the AIP and not to take the place of it. But in regard to the user fees, how do you propose—what are you going to do to attempt to sell those? You know, there still is very strong opposition from general aviation. Are you going to meet with the general aviation community in an attempt to show them that they are going to get some increased benefits of some sort? You know that they feel they are paying their fair share now.
Ms. GARVEY. Yes; that's correct, Mr. Congressman. In fact, we have been meeting regularly both with commercial aviation and with general aviation. We will continue, of course, with our position that general aviation will not be affected by the user fees, understanding their concerns. But they are definitely excluded from our proposal.
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I think key for us, in talking with the industry about it, is still the cost accounting system and that we've had some very good discussions, both in large groups with industry and also individually. I've actually met with CEO's and talked about how they put together cost accounting systems for their airlines. I think that is going to be critical as we move forward over the next several months, both developing the cost accounting system so that it is something that we all have confidence in—not just the FAA, but industry as well—and that's a very challenging job. I'm not underestimating how challenging that task is, but I think the cost accounting is critical.
Mr. DUNCAN. We heard yesterday that the number of general aviation airports had gone down from 6,800 to 5,000 since the early 70's and that we are losing some of these smaller general aviation airports due to suburban growth and other factors at the rate of losing at least one airport a week. Do you think that is something that we should be concerned about? Are you looking at that, or do you think that's something that we need to do something about? Or is that something that you don't think is much of a problem?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, that is, Mr. Chairman, something that we are concerned about. We've talked very regularly with the general aviation community about that. We have a hook, if you will, in those airports where there are grant assurances, and I think that is a way that we can and we have interjected ourselves. There are some in California that I think we've been very effective at keeping them open. A number of the ones that have closed are private and do not have grant assurances, so the hook is a little bit harder to reach, if you will. But I do think that is something that we need to focus on.
As I've talked to the general aviation community, I've also stressed that I think, very often, local involvement in those issues is extraordinarily important, local weighing-in, if you will, with elected officials, because very often these initiate because elected officials think there is another need for the airport. I think sometimes exerting some influence at the local level is important as well, as we look at it from the Federal level.
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One point that I know the Secretary has made, and I've certainly heard the general aviation community make is that we really do need to think of it as a system. It's not just the larger airports, but the small airports, and when you look at it as a system, the smaller and mid-sized airports become increasingly important.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, we mentioned in here yesterday that there is a tremendous movement going on in this country today of people retiring to small towns and rural areas, and then, also, many people moving their businesses there even though maybe, many years ago, they felt they had to be in some of the bigger cities.
But today, because of the computers and all the technology we have and the WATS lines and the fax machines and so forth, a lot of people feel they can have their businesses in some of these smaller towns and rural areas now, where they might not have been able to in past years. And so I think that means that the aviation facilities in some of these small towns and rural areas are going to be even more important in the years ahead, and I think that's something that I hope you will take into consideration.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you this. Last week the Airline Pilots Association, in their testimony, was very critical of the FAA for not—they said that you had not allocated any funds to deal with the problem of runway incursions, and the leadership of the full committee—Chairman Shuster, Mr. Oberstar—we had earlier sent a letter in late November to you about that problem. What is the current situation in that regard? Do you just feel that this is a problem that the airline pilots have exaggerated, or what is the situation?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, I will go back and look at the testimony; I haven't seen it. But I will tell you it is absolutely a critical issue for us. Runway incursion is something that cuts across and is really a fundamental piece of our safety agenda. It affects commercial aviation, and it affects general aviation. We have, I believe, an excellent plan in place on runway incursion. It includes both training, which is critical and important because a lot of it is the interaction between the pilot and controllers and the folks on the ground—so training is a part of it. There is also technology that can be approved. I don't think we got off to as an aggressive a start as we should have, and that's partly because we are so organized around lines of business.
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Runway incursion is something that cuts across the Agency. It affects airports; it affects air traffic; it affects even the safety folks, obviously. So it cuts across our organization, and we had to sort of re-organize for that initiative.
I would like to report back, specifically on where we are with some of those elements of the runway incursion, but I'm very comfortable with and confident about the approach we are taking. I think the fair question is, are we being quite aggressive enough? I will go back and look at ALPA's testimony because that is important, and they should know what we are doing in that area as well.
Mr. DUNCAN. Dr. Cooksey mentioned this article that was in the Wall Street Journal based on this report that about 75 percent of the flights to major airports are taking longer today. And Administrator Hinson, your predecessor, used to tell us that he thought that most of the delays were due primarily to problems in airport capacity. Do you agree with that, or do you think that most of the problem is due to the problems in modernizing the air traffic control system?
Ms. GARVEY. I think from my perspective, the modernizing of the system is really critical, and that really has been and will be for us the major emphasis, and building the air-side capacity and efficiencies through modernization.
Mr. DUNCAN. Last week, former Secretary Burnley was in my office. He now represents American Airlines. We were discussing this modernization problem and I showed him an article from one of the New York newspapers concerning that, and he made the comment, something to the effect that we were having these same conversations in the mid–1980's. We keep running into these 14-month delays; a delay here, a delay there, a cost overrun here, a cost overrun there, WAAS, STARS, all of these. Are we ever going to get a handle on these types of things, or is it just because the FAA is such a gigantic bureaucracy that it's almost inevitable that 10 or 20 years from now somebody is going to be sitting here talking about the antiquated air traffic control system at that time.
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I mean, do you see any hope?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, I guess if I didn't see any hope, I'm not sure I could be sitting here, but I really do. I mean, I think the approach that we're trying to take of build a little, test a little, get it out—it's the building block approach, and I have to tell you it's very similar to what Dan Goldin has done at NASA. I've spent a lot of time talking with him about that, that what we've got to do is get these building blocks in place and move forward incrementally and recognize that when you put something out, we're constantly going to be improving it.
I don't want to suggest that we're going to solve all of the problems because, I think, also combined with that is the state-of-the-art nature of all of this technology. There is still so much we don't know as we go into it. In fact, again, I noticed in the paper last week a couple of big projects that NASA had underway running into similar software challenges, as we have with STARS. So, some of that, I think, is part of the nature of dealing with this extraordinarily complex and complicated technology.
But, having said that, I do think we can do it better and are doing it better by taking it incrementally, taking off sort of bite-sized pieces. Speaking of American, Bob Baker, who is from American, has been a key architect with us in sort of thinking of this approach and moving forward with this approach.
So, I'm hopeful. I don't want to be overly confident, but I'm hopeful that we won't be sitting here 15 years from now. I hope we're sitting here 15 years from now saying what we did was terrific and look at what is new out there for us to take on now.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Let me ask one more question of Mr. Murphy—well, really one real short one. What figure did you finally come up with on the Chicago benefits? You started out with $626 million, and I wasn't clear. You seemed to change that.
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Mr. MURPHY. The number I quoted for the consumer was $626 million in annual benefits. That's based on a 1995 study.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, that's a very significant benefit. That's great. What I really wanted to ask you was this. There are 431 primary airports, and I'm wondering about airline competition. We got briefly into that. How many of those airports do you believe there is a problem with a lack of competition at this time? Or, what can you tell us in that regard?
Mr. MURPHY. Well, I cannot give you a number. I can tell you that we are concerned about some of the dominated hub airports and what are called hub premiums that we believe are being charged at those largest airports. We are also concerned about some areas of the country in rural and small communities. They have been called pockets of pain for a number of years.
In Rochester last Friday when we held a very well-attended listening session—people came all the way from Wyoming and Iowa—several people said we need to stop talking about pockets of pain. We need to talk about blankets of pain, that there are whole regions that feel they are not getting the benefits of competition of low fare carriers, and that those communities are hurt in trying to develop their economies. They are falling behind in the global economy.
Mr. DUNCAN. Just a rough guess—what percentage of those 431 do you believe would classify themselves as being underserved, overpriced airports? Three-fourths, two-thirds, half?
Mr. MURPHY. Well, I hesitate to give you a number. I would just say when we did a study, a report to Congress about a year ago when we focused only on non-hubs, the smallest communities, we found slightly under half where things were perhaps not as good as one would have hoped, either in terms of service or fares, and in slightly more than half we could see clear benefits.
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Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much. Mr. Oberstar.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To follow up on your point, your questions about STARS—it's one of most complex of the many technological advances FAA is incorporating into the air traffic control system—the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, it has gone through a couple of major changes in direction and in capacity requirements and in dependability, if you will.
But as this system has gone through its development by Raytheon under contract with the FAA, both the contractor and FAA have had, hand-in-hand, comparable problems. FAA is the overall manager of the system in its development and has to bear responsibility for management. Raytheon has to bear responsibility for carrying out and fulfilling its contract. And I think both made a mistake early on by not having controllers involved at the very outset in the development of the technology.
Controllers were brought in at a much later stage after the engineers had decided what was good for controllers and how best to respond to the needs of providing vast amounts of information faster, more accurately, and in more useable form, right down to the design of the board itself and the screen. And engineers didn't understand, controllers didn't want to take their eyes off the screen to look at a keyboard and punch in commands. The engineers didn't understand that, while these flashing symbols are very good, the information they wanted to put on the screen in the form of windows was covering up valuable information for controllers. And I won't go into all of the other details.
But I think we now have, I think you would agree, Administrator Garvey, the issue of color, flashing signals, opaque windows, track ball, and keyboard location resolved, and controllers are now involved. And what you have to do is get the controllers to commit, to agree to freeze the requirements at this stage and Raytheon to agree to freeze the requirements at this stage and go on and complete the system, put it in place, get it operational, and then if there are some adjustments you need to make—fine—do it later on.
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Ms. GARVEY. Absolutely. I could not have said that better, and I'm sure Mike McNally agrees as well.
Mr. OBERSTAR. You have, sitting behind you, a murderer's row of former staff professionals up here on our committee: David Traynham, Mary Walsh, and others that we've trained, and now that they know how to do it, they're helping you to do it; they obviously have prepared you well. You have done a superb job as Administrator——
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you.
Mr. OBERSTAR. —and I am very impressed that you have vastly improved the morale of FAA in your, so far, brief tenure, and I just wish you continued success in the hard work.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. OBERSTAR. I know you put in long hours with staff and on each of these high visibility problems. You don't just pass it off. You are hands-on involved in each of these issues, and I appreciate that and I think the aviation community, generally, appreciates that.
Mr. OBERSTAR. But now you are—not so much you, but the administration has come up to us with a heavy burden. It's going to be hard to carry this water of a performance-based organization for air traffic control. You know, I thought the administration learned their lesson five or six years ago when they cooked up this wacky idea of separating out air traffic control, putting it in a corporation, having it run over here, and then have a rump FAA over on the other side handling all of the rest of it. That doesn't work. There is a synergy that develops between the FAA that oversees set standards and regulates safety and the air traffic control system that operates the day-to-day movement of aircraft in our space and in our terminal control areas and oversees all the rest of safety and security.
I don't like this idea, and I hope you don't either.
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[Laughter.]
Ms. GARVEY. I was just going to suggest it was David Traynham's idea.
[Laughter.]
Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, he served on that Commission.
[Laughter.]
And not all of his ideas were good; most of them were, but not all, and certainly not since he left the committee.
[Laughter.]
So, just understand. I think safety would be compromised, and I think controller functioning and service would be compromised. I think this idea of performance-based, where you may be putting out bonuses to a controller or to a center or to a tower or to a TRACON to meet certain performance standards, in order to meet those standards to get down to the end of their reporting period, that they are going to start closing up separation; they're going to start moving aircraft a little faster through; they're going to start cutting the margins on wake turbulence. I don't think that's a good idea. I think that is fraught with danger for aviation.
If air travelers today are either sleepwalking as they get on airplanes or are white-knuckle flyers, their toes will curl when they find out what's in store for them with this proposition. So, I don't understand what is going to be improved. What problems will this PBO address at FAA that you haven't already taken hold of by the throat and addressed?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, let me just make a couple of comments. We've had a chance, I know, to talk about this. I do want to make one very important point, which I think——
Mr. OBERSTAR. You make a valiant effort.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you. This is going to be an attempt, all right? First of all, to make the distinction between what we've proposed now and what we've proposed in the past, this still is very much a part of the FAA. The chief operating officer, in fact, would report to the Administrator, so that is significantly different, and we certainly got the message loud and clear, the Administration did from Congress two or three years ago, when they proposed the corporation.
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I do think, however, that your question about what's broke is a fair question to ask us, and when we've asked ourselves that—we posed this the other day—I thought one of the long-time FAA folks had a good response, which is, we have a wonderful system. So to say it is broken isn't fair. I mean, we have an extraordinary record in aviation.
Mr. OBERSTAR. An over-used, rhetorical symbol.
Ms. GARVEY. Right.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Meaningless.
Ms. GARVEY. And he said perhaps a better question is, can we make it better? Can we make it better? That's really what we need to ask ourselves as we talk through this proposal with you. Can we do anything to make it better? This is our proposal, in a sense, to give us that one last tool, the financing tool. It allows us to recruit some very top people for a chief operating officer.
But, certainly, as I mentioned earlier in response to some questions, we are taking a number of steps in terms of a performance-based organization, even without legislation. I mean, moving towards performance measures, moving towards a metric so that we know what we're measuring and whether we are succeeding and whether we are improving and what we need to do, regardless. Moving to a cost accounting system we think is important as well.
So, this is one proposal. We think it's worthy of good discussion. We certainly are very eager to look at the funding issue, to give us the kind of stable, predictable funding that we need in order to modernize the system, and that's really our goal in beginning the discussion and discussing it with Congress.
Mr. OBERSTAR. That is a refreshing assessment, and I have every confidence that the FAA can address all of these issues internally without some superficial new term or title, that your hands-on, aggressive management within the Agency is addressing those issues, and that's the direction we ought to move.
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And the point that you made about funding. Last week Tony Broderick—well-known, beloved to all of us—said that the budget process we now use causes, quote, ''safety programs within the FAA to rearrange priorities and re-allocate staffing to account for unanticipated funding cuts.''
And another factor that has emerged from these hearings is that every time we have to cut funding, or the FAA has to cut funding, training budgets are the first to be chopped, people are chopped. FAA took the big brunt of the cut-back in 1993 and 1994 at DOT. More than 60 percent of the personnel cuts at DOT came out of FAA. Now, if we had a dedicated revenue stream, a guaranteed revenue stream you could count on every year, airports could count on every year, your contractors, in carrying out their development of the replacement of the new generation technology for the F&E account could count on, then we would have a more stable system.
So, don't you want to just come right out and support our off-budget proposal that Chairman Shuster and I have introduced?
Ms. GARVEY. Well, again, to go back to some of the——
Mr. OBERSTAR. In your heart, I know you're with us.
[Laughter.]
Ms. GARVEY. You're not making this easy for me, Congressman.
[Laughter.]
Mr. OBERSTAR. You don't have to go any further than that. I understand; I understand. You know, when the Republicans had the White House, we didn't push Administrators to do what in their heart they knew was right, but what their public persona—one final question.
In supporting an expanded PFC, a $5.00 PFC, the administration proposal would require that airports submit a competition plan. Is the approval of a PFC going to be conditioned upon demonstrating that there will be a satisfactory competition plan submitted? And, secondly—I see Susan Kurland sitting there behind you—can you or she tell us how much of the PFC money in the last nine years has gone to construction of gates that have engendered increased competition at congested hubs, concentrated hubs?
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Ms. GARVEY. Well, let me begin. First of all, yes, that would be one of the criteria that we are asking for, when you raise the PFC from $4.00 to $5.00, that there be, for those large hub airports, that there be a competition plan. And, frankly, this is in response to what we believe, also, was the congressional intent originally of PFC, and that was one of the reasons to put the PFC's in place, to encourage competition. We think that's a good public policy.
The second piece of that, which is how much has gone towards gate competition, if you will, or expansion through gates, we're engaged in a study right now with DOT to look at that issue. I don't know if Susan has an actual number, but I know that's one of the issues of the study that we have underway with DOT, with Pat's office, to take a look at just how have PFC's been used to enhance competition. Has it be used correctly, adequately? Most airports think it has, but we just really want to get a better sense of it and a better assessment.
I don't know if Susan has an accurate number at hand; we can certainly provide it to you.
Ms. KURLAND. As Administrator Garvey has said, that is one of the things that we are looking at in the study. We know percentage-wise how much of the PFC's have gone to land-side types of projects, but we don't have the distinctions built in yet as to which have gone specifically to enhance competition projects, but, hopefully, we will have that when the study is done and provide that to you.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. Before we would proceed on a matter of this kind, I think we need that information. And then the distinction—isn't this normally, the issue of competition, a DOT decision rather than an FAA decision?
Ms. GARVEY. The competition definitely is, but because we implement the PFC program, this is something that we would look at, but we would clearly involve DOT and clearly involve Pat Murphy's office.
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Mr. MURPHY. I would add, Congressman, that the competition plan would be sent to the office of the Secretary for review, and we would be reviewing that at the same time that the FAA is reviewing the actual dollar request, and it is our intent to work on the same timeframe.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Now that issue of competition is one that I vigorously insisted on in 1990, and Secretary Skinner also supported it, and I think my disappointment is that it has not engendered as much competition as we anticipated it might.
There are a number of other questions I would have, but I'll——
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much. We're going to lose this room shortly, and so, Ms. Garvey, we certainly thank you for being here with us. You've been here almost two-and-a-half hours; you have been very helpful to us, and thank you very, very much, and Mr. Murphy.
Ms. GARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. And we'll call up the second panel at this time. We have a very distinguished second panel composed of Ms. Carol B. Hallett, who is the president and chief executive officer of the Air Transport Association of America; Mr. T. Peter Ruane, who is the chairman of the Alliance for Truth in Transportation Budgeting; the Honorable Joan Bray, who is a Missouri State representative and is here representing the National Conference of State Legislatures; Mr. Michael P. McNally, who is president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association; Mr. John W. Olcott, who is the president of the National Business Aviation Association, and Mr. Fred Vogt, who is director of the aeronautics division of the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
And certainly we are pleased to have each of these very distinguished witnesses with us for the second panel. And, as always, we proceed in the order that the witnesses are listed on the call of the hearing, and that means that, Ms. Hallett, we'll start with you first, please, and then we'll go from there to Mr. Ruane, and then Ms. Bray, and continue on down the list.
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TESTIMONY OF CAROL B. HALLETT, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, T. PETER RUANE, CHAIRMAN, ALLIANCE FOR TRUTH IN TRANSPORTATION BUDGETING; HON. JOAN BRAY, MISSOURI STATE REPRESENTATIVE, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES; MICHAEL P. MCNALLY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION; JOHN W. OLCOTT, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BUSINESS AVIATION ASSOCIATION, INC.; AND FREDERICK H. VOGT, DIRECTOR, AERONAUTICS DIVISION, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, AND CHAIRMAN, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE AVIATION OFFICIALS
Ms. HALLETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I particularly appreciate your kind words at the beginning of the hearing this morning.
I want to thank the members and yourself for the opportunity to appear before you today, and I particularly want to emphasize that we are here today to talk about the overall financial needs of the aviation system, and I do request that my written testimony become a part of the record.
It is our view that the Aviation Trust Fund must be unlocked to meet the needs of the traveling and shipping public for a safe and efficient and a reliable system, and we pledge our vigorous support to accomplish this goal, to you, Mr. Chairman, and all of the members of the committee.
ATA believes that change in the new millennium is necessary to ensure that aviation infrastructure modernization becomes a reality, and we've heard a lot about that this morning. Governance and budget reforms are two cornerstones needed, and neither can be done in isolation if it is going to be successful.
In Fiscal Year 1998, $8.1 billion was collected from airline passengers and shippers, the airlines themselves, and private aircraft owners. At the end of Fiscal Year 1998, $2.8 billion more accrued in the uncommitted balance of the Aviation Trust Fund. This is simply unconscionable.
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As part of this budget reform, ATA's members believe there must be a permanent and mandatory general fund contribution of approximately 30 percent of the FAA's total budget, and it should be set aside from discretionary spending as well, and that, of course, would cover safety, security, certification, and, again, issues discussed this morning.
Mr. Chairman, in addition to the authorizing committee role in formulating the FAA financial plan, we believe the appropriations committees also have a key role and therefore must retain authority to oversee the FAA's budget. We see appropriations maintaining their authority to ensure prudent spending, and thus should have the power to hold over or reduce FAA's spending to amounts even below the sum of the taxes collected and the general fund contribution when appropriate, and that would be in any one year.
Within a two-or-three-year period, however, we believe that legislation should require that holdover monies be spent for improving aviation safety and efficiency, or returned in the form of tax relief.
Regarding airport financing, significant benefits exist to spend all of the monies collected, an AIP authorization floor of over $2 billion plus the interest accruing on the trust fund surplus should be used for increasing airport infrastructure. This annual surplus holdover was over $2 billion last year and could be allocated to AIP at levels even higher, as determined by the Appropriations Committee. This would eliminate the need for a PFC tax increase.
Mr. Chairman, as you and the members have said previously on many occasions, there is no justification to increase taxes when a surplus from taxes collected exists. Thus, the $2.8 billion surplus in the Fiscal Year 1998 surplus of the Aviation Trust Fund could be spent on airport infrastructure, representing the equivalent of a $4.50 increase in the PFC without any new taxes being levied.
We also urge the committee to include in the re-authorization provisions similar to those in section 817 of H.R. 4057 from last year, which called for the DOT IG to undertake analysis of the FAA cost accounting system.
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Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move to governance reform. Our members specifically endorse only the governance structure for the operation of the ATC system, as recommended by the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, thus creating an ATC board of directors chaired by the FAA Administrator, with six public members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
The board would be responsible for directing the affairs of the ATC, and, further, the board would hire a COO to run the ATC system and establish specific measures for ATC performance, implement appropriate cost accounting and financial systems to ensure cost containment, efficiency, and productivity gains, and to run the ATC system in a more business-like manner to gain greater efficiencies, and that would be on a day-to-day basis.
Incidentally, Chairman Duncan, this is very similar to the legislation that you passed out of the House unanimously in the 104th Congress.
And so, Mr. Chairman, and members, to conclude these brief remarks—and I will be looking forward to taking your questions momentarily—I would just like to emphasize that we and the members of the Air Transport Association stand ready to work with you all to ensure that the FAA meets the safety and efficiency requirements of the next century, and we look forward with great pleasure to working with you to unlock the trust funds.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Hallett. Mr. Ruane.
Mr. RUANE. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lipinski, members of the committee. I am Pete Ruane, chairman of the Alliance for Truth in Transportation Budgeting and president and CEO of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. I appreciate the opportunity to appear today.
Organized in 1995, the Alliance is a coalition of over 100 national business and labor organizations dedicated to removing the Federal transportation trust funds from the unified Federal budget. The Alliance has worked tirelessly over the last four years to follow the lead of this committee's chairman, and Mr. Oberstar, in pursuit of this goal.
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Last year, the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century, or TEA–21, achieved a major breakthrough in the off-budget campaign by establishing a permanent mechanism to protect the Highway Trust Fund and ensure that all future Federal highway user fee revenues are utilized for their intended purpose—for their intended purpose—surface transportation investment. Now is the time to turn our attention to the remaining transportation trust funds.
Chairman Shuster and Mr. Oberstar introduced H.R. 111, the Truth in Budgeting Act, on January 7, to take the Airport and Airways, Inland Waterway, and Harbor Maintenance Trust Funds off budget. This legislation is a continuation of our success in TEA–21, and the Alliance has already begun working to help secure co-sponsors for this bill.
In the 105th Congress, over 240 Members of the House co-sponsored transportation trust funds off budget, and over 210 of those Members are serving in the 106th Congress. We are therefore very enthusiastic about our ability to get the requisite support.
There are two main benefits for taking the Airport and Airways Trust Fund off budget, in our opinion. First of all, the irrefutable—irrefutable needs of our aviation system demand increased investment. The U.S. General Accounting Office, as others have noted this morning, reports a $3 billion annual shortfall between available capital development funds and needed airport improvements.
Since 1993, however, investment in Federal aviation programs has been flat. Further exacerbating the situation, the number of passengers on commercial air carriers is projected to grow at over 50 percent during the next 10 years. Airport capacity, therefore, must grow to meet our current needs and prepare for the future. We recognize there is no simple solution to meeting these demands, given the scarce Federal resources. But the resources to increase airport investment do, in fact, exist in the Airport Trust Fund, which is currently over $10 billion and could grow—could grow to over $50 billion in the year 2008.
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I would also like to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, our analysis—ARTBA's analysis—of the administration's budget proposal prepared by Dr. Bill Buechner, our vice president for economics and research, who is also accompanying me here today, with your permission.
The unexpended balance in the trust fund leads to the second primary benefit of taking the trust fund off budget. It will restore integrity to the user fee concept under which the trust fund was established. Aviation users are paying approximately $10 billion into the trust fund this year, and I can assure you that they expect these fees to be used to improve our aviation system.
In fact, a colleague organization recently conducted a nationwide poll—the Rebuild America Coalition—which found that 66 percent of respondents rated spending on America's infrastructure as a strong investment in America. In fact, two-thirds of those respondents even indicated a willingness to pay more in taxes if the funds so collected were used for their intended purpose, and that's the key—used for their intended purpose.
So beyond the common-sense aspects of this, there are many economic benefits of this increased investment, which is spelled out in our statement in great detail, including the output of over $200 billion a year that is expected in the economy for every $1 billion invested, a 40,000 job creation impact, which includes both direct and indirect.
And something that goes unrecognized most of the time is that such investments in our transportation infrastructure—these are the most durable and longest-lived productive assets, which will last on average 67 years, far beyond the normal investments we ourselves make. And so the economy will benefit significantly with greater investments in this area.
I realize to many of you today, this is like preaching to the choir to talk about H.R. 111 and the re-authorization program. I was very pleased to see yesterday a number of our members of the Alliance, including some here at the table with me, also echo their support for taking the trust funds off budget, and particularly pleased to see Secretary Skinner go on record—I wish we could have gotten him to do that earlier, when he was Secretary, but I was pleased to see that he stated that support yesterday in testimony before you.
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And as other witnesses have mentioned today, the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, as you well know, back in 1996 made a large point of suggesting that the FAA's funding rules be changed. The budget rules are crippling the FAA's ability to do its job. And so we recognize the political realities of achieving this task, Mr. Chairman, and we recall, sometimes with humor, the fact that when we launched this effort in 1995 it was mocked by many, and many naysayers predicted our failure.
I'm here to say again to you that it's a credit to the leadership of this committee and the members of this committee that we were able to unlock the Highway Trust Fund, and with the same dogged determination, I assure you the Alliance will use the same methods in the coming months to help get the Aviation Trust Fund off budget.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Ruane. Ms. Bray.
Ms. BRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Joan Bray. I'm a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, where I serve as Chair of the Ways and Means Committee.
Today I appear before you representing the National Conference of State Legislatures—NCSL. For 1998–1999, I am Chair of NCSL's Transportation and Energy Committee. As you know, NCSL represents the Nation's 50 State legislatures, its territories, and the District of Columbia.
We consistently present to the U.S. Congress strongly-held positions on the preservation of State authority, protection against unfunded Federal mandates, promotion of fiscal integrity, and development and maintenance of workable State-Federal partnerships. My testimony will focus on matters of fiscal integrity and our Federal-State partnership in aviation.
As diverse as State legislatures may be, NCSL's transportation policies represent unanimous consensus on the issues. A balanced transportation system is key to the mobility of our population and to economic growth. That is why NCSL worked so hard with the Congress and the administration last year for the passage of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. It is why NCSL is prepared to work with you again to build on that success. Our aviation system is a key cog in our transportation network, one that deserves similar kinds of funding and policy outcomes.
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I represent a constituency that is reliant on efficient, accessible, and safe air travel. The St. Louis area, where my district is situated, is home to one of Missouri's two major airports. But while I reside in an urban area, my concern is just as strong for the more than 100 other airports serving smaller cities and less populated regions within Missouri.
Representing NCSL, I come before you on behalf of my colleagues with similar concerns. NCSL believes that implementing the following recommendations will enhance the State's partnership with the Federal Government. Number one, we must first ensure the integrity of the Airport and Airways Trust Fund.
To accomplish that, NCSL urges the subcommittee to take the following actions: (a) remove the Airport and Airways Trust Fund from the unified budget, (b) use all existing dedicated user taxes and charges solely for aviation purposes, (c) classify aviation programs financed by the trust fund as mandatory spending and operate them on a pay-as-you-go basis, (d) maintain State airport grant funding, appropriations for the Essential Air Service and related aviation efforts at current or greater levels to meet identified capital needs.
In Missouri, like in many other States, we have a five-year aviation plan that recognizes the need for continued and expanded investment in air travel. Since 1993, funding from the Federal fund has steadily declined, endangering our program. We need your support as our partner to keep pace on achieving our goals.
Because of the way various trust funds have been used in the past at the Federal level, and because they are typically financed by user fees and taxes, NCSL has consistently urged the Congress and the administration to move various trust funds off budget.
My State is no stranger to trust funds. We collect a 9-cent per gallon aviation tax and impose a jet fuel sales tax of 3 percent. Last year the general assembly passed legislation in effect moving the trust fund off budget. Now, each dollar coming in is required to be spent expeditiously for the purposes for which it was collected.
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Number two, we urge you to enhance, not arbitrarily reduce, Federal funding for aviation program. NCSL is mindful of the spending caps agreed to in the 1997 Balanced Budget agreement, nonetheless, we have carefully determined our appropriations priorities for Fiscal Year 2000, knowing that you have some very difficult, challenging fiscal decisions to render. But in making the decisions, we strongly urge to resist any arbitrary funding reductions in State aviation programs.
Number three, general fund contribution for aviation purposes must be maintained. The trust fund, even with anticipated growth, cannot accommodate growing demands on our aviation system. Furthermore, the Federal Government and the military, as well as the public-at-large, use airport and aviation facilities. To my mind, the fact that the Federal Government is a user demands continued fiscal commitment from the general fund.
Four, innovative financing methods must be continued and explored. NCSL supports such creative financing mechanisms as State infrastructure banks and revolving loans to meet the demands on smaller airports, in particular, and other needs outside the existing airport improvement program as well.
Number five, the State block grant program should be extended and expanded. Missouri was an early participant in the block grant program in 1990, and our success with it has surprised even ourselves. The flexibility the program provides for us to work through our State-set priorities has helped eliminate waste and duplication, cut Federal costs, and increased efficiency.
Finally, I would thank the subcommittee and the full committee and the House for their re-authorizing the Airport Improvement Program for six months. It's very difficult for States to proceed with this year's projects with only a fraction of funding in place. We hope that this re-authorization will take place.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today, and I want to close by mentioning that NCSL's partners, representing other State and local officials, hold views quite similar to those I have expressed today. I urge you to work closely with all of us to achieve what I hope are mutual objectives.
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And thank you again, and I stand prepared to respond to your questions.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, Representative Bray, thank you very much. It's an honor to have you here with us. We know that members of the State legislatures deal with just as tough of issues, or sometimes tougher than we do here, and so it's a privilege to have you here with us today.
Ms. BRAY. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. McNally.
Mr. MCNALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You caught me in mid-pour.
[Laughter.]
Thank you for having me here, sir, Congressman Lipinski, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Mike McNally, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which exclusively represents the 16,000 Federal air traffic controllers and engineers within the FAA.
Just a few weeks ago, the media began reporting that in 1998 there was not one single domestic commercial aviation fatality, this when a record-setting 628 million people traveled through our skies. In part, I would like to say that it was the air traffic controllers who contributed to this amazing feat, despite the numerous communication equipment outages that we face on a regular basis.
NATCA has long-believed that adequate and sustained funding is essential to the modernization of the NAS. We have reported to this committee on many occasions that the FAA is woefully underfunded. Many air traffic control facilities, as an example, are over 20 years old, if not more, and are in desperate need of repair and replacement. We still have asbestos in the majority of the in-route centers that we have out there where we are putting in new display system replacement equipment. There isn't even enough money to even fix the chairs that we sit upon. There is a definite need in the funding arena.
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As this subcommittee begins tackling the issue of Aviation Trust Funds off budget, or user fees and PBO's, please keep in mind that NACA definitely does not oppose more money for the FAA. However, NACA does believe that increasing FAA's budget should not come at the cost of strong congressional oversight and agency accountability at this time.
The majority in the aviation industry agree that technology, in the way of computers, radar, and communication equipment, as well as display equipment for controllers, must be upgraded. To date, there are over 200 separate projects that fall within the modernization program. Of these, 169 are air traffic controller information systems and will cost the taxpayers, naturally, billions of dollars.
All of us know of the money lost with the cancellation of the Advanced Automation System in 1994. This is the exact situation that NATCA is working to avoid. We are firm supporters of Administrator Jane Garvey's ''build a little, test a little, deploy a little'' strategy, and NATCA will remain an advocate of this approach throughout the modernization effort.
As the AAS experience has shown us, it is important for the FAA to include controllers in the beginning of any modernization program. With the DSR, the FAA failed momentarily to learn from past mistakes. Controllers found that DSR was not deployable as designed, and NATCA brought their concerns to the FAA. At the request of NATCA, the FAA put engineers, controllers, and FAA managers into a working group to resolve the 19 issues identified by controllers, and now the system is fully useable.
The success of the DSR working group shows the kind of positive, cost-effective results that can be obtained with controller involvement early on. The cost of making the changes that the working group agreed on could have been avoided had controllers been involved in the beginning of the concept, design, and acquisition, and under Administrator Garvey's leadership, that is beginning to take place.
There are a few projects in our written testimony, that I would like to submit for the record, that I would just like to briefly mention, and that I would be happy to answer any questions on, and that is retaining primary radar, properly integrating datalink into the system, implementing the necessary safeguards for the GPS, automating oceanic control, installing DSR in air traffic control centers, and deploying a suitable STARS system in terminal facilities are a few of the critical major projects necessary for modernization.
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Again, I would be happy to answer any questions around any of those.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. McNally. Mr. Olcott.
Mr. OLCOTT. Good afternoon. I represent the National Business Aviation Association. Our association represents the aviation interests of over 6,000 member companies that use general aviation for business transportation. I respectfully request that our written testimony be submitted to the record.
NBAA member companies have a vital interest in our Nation's aviation system. As economic leaders, they use air transportation in all of its forms. They use the airlines, they use general aviation. Transportation has always been and always will be a necessary ingredient of economic development. Certainly in today's fast-paced business environment, aviation is a national resource.
NBAA joins its colleagues in general aviation in supporting the positions they expressed yesterday, which were we are united in our views regarding the importance of smaller, general aviation airports and the need for ATC modernization. We endorse this committee's efforts to unlock the Aviation Trust Fund. We encourage continual congressional oversight of future FAA spending, and we stand firm in our position that maintaining a general fund contribution to FAA funding is in the Nation's best interest.
Furthermore, NBAA believes that aviation must receive sufficient priority if our Nation is to maintain its leadership within air transportation. We must elevate aviation to a higher priority as a national commitment.
Our Nation's aviation infrastructure has pressing needs. General aviation airports are being threatened by a lack of adequate funding, in the order of 50 percent, according to the GAO. Our member companies use general aviation to reach 10-times the locations that have any scheduled airline service and 100-times the locations that have frequent service. Thus, NBAA has a strong interest in how trust fund dollars will be allocated to general aviation airports.
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We are also concerned about access to the existing airport system. Lax enforcement of AIP grant assurances and artificial constraints to airport access must not be allowed to offset the good work to gain additional airport funding. We are all familiar with the needs of our aging ATC system. Free flight under the leadership of RTCA offers great promise. We urge the subcommittee to support the free-flight architecture, including GPS, WAAS, LAAS, and datalink.
In closing, we are concerned by two aspects of the administration's approach to aviation, namely user fees and a performance-based, or PBO, for managing ATC—air traffic control. User fees would significantly diminish the role of general aviation in our Nation's transportation system. Many studies have shown general aviation to be broadly price-sensitive. Imposition of user fees would have significant, unintended consequences in the safety and utility of general aviation and would depress this segment of our Nation's aviation system.
Furthermore, funding our Nation's aviation system solely by user fees discounts the public benefit of aviation that accrues to all U.S. citizens. User fees must not be used as a substitute for general fund contribution. A PBO would shift significant power to certain user groups, possibly diminishing the role of other segments in aviation. A PBO for ATC also raises the safety concerns by essentially creating two FAA's with potentially conflicting missions.
Considering the intense controversy surrounding both user fees and the PBO proposals, it is NBAA's hope that this subcommittee will avoid these distractions. We trust you will move forward with your efforts to boost investment in ATC modernization and improve America's airport infrastructure.
Thank you. I would be glad to answer any questions that you might have.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much Mr. Olcott.
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Mr. Vogt.
Mr. VOGT. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lipinski and ladies and gentlemen of the House Aviation Subcommittee. I am honored to be with you today. You introduced me as the State Director of Tennessee, which I am, but I am also representing the National Association of State Aviation officials, serving the public interest of all 50 States, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
It is my privilege to present the NASAO proposal for AIP. It is in a detail written statement Mr. Chairman, that I submit for the record with your approval.
I will cover some of the highlights, those six points, with you this morning, as time permits. I have been the director for five years. I have been in the Navy for 30 years, flying off aircraft carriers, and I guess I would say nobody appreciates long runways and safe environments more than a Navy pilot.
FAA has gone a long way in this country to building up our airport infrastructure, to provide a safe environment for our public. With your help, they have created an airport system that is unequal in the world. You have received several hours of written and verbal testimony during the last two days on such issues as PFCs and slots for airlines, and how much PFCs should be, slot availability, and who they should go to. These are, of course, very important issues and they need to be addressed, but the most important issues are the core issues of authorization of $2 billion a year, multi-year authorizations, and a dedicated aviation fund spent for its intended purpose.
Without working and solving those core issues of how much and who owns the dollars, and how many years we can spend those dollars, we badly miss the mark and the peripheral issues gain a prominence that promises to stop our fundamental duty to provide the public with a safe airport system.
You charged FFA with only accepting one mandate, and that was safety, not promotion of aviation, but safety. The States have always had that mandate, safety in our State airports. We work hand in hand with FAA to achieve that. Unless we pass a second half AIP for 1999, which I know you have, or increase the AIP for the future year, we will significantly curtail our work at general aviation airports.
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In Tennessee, the cost will be over $2.5 million to our general aviation program. That may not be significant when we speak of the multimillion dollar projects at major commercial service airports, but what it means to one particular airport in Tennessee is the loss of a badly needed runway overlay and a movement of a road that violates the runway safety area.
Who uses that rural airport? As you mentioned earlier, those rural airports are very, very important to the economy of not only Tennessee, but the rest of the country. Northwest doesn't use it; Federal Express doesn't use it, but Corporate Aviation uses the runway.
There is a 1:05 business flight each week going in and out of this 5,000-foot GA strip. Those companies are the lifeblood to that county in rural Tennessee. It is their airport, and it is important to others outside Tennessee, as we compete in a global and national marketplace.
Large airports such as Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis will rearrange funding sources. They will delay their construction starts, but, frankly, if their cashflow is good, the six-month AIP will have minimal impact on those large airports. For the State programs for general aviation, it is sending the wrong message; that we may not be as serious about funding all the airports in the country.
FAA is funding general aviation programs, and NASAO is appreciative of that effort. It is not the airport system—it is the airport system, I should say, that is important. It is not the individual-type airport. Chairman Shuster declared this the Year of Aviation. Organizations and associations such as NASAO, the Southern Governors Association, led by Governor Sunquist of Tennessee and Governor Gilmore of Virginia; the National Governors Association; the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation officials have all joined Chairman Shuster to support this year as the Year of Aviation for our country.
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Each group has essentially joined to pronounce their support for the six elements of the airport improvement program outlined in NASAO and AIP. A couple of the other issues that are in those six points outside the core issues include improving or increasing the State apportionment that shared a 20 percent from the existing 18.5. This will restore the much-needed planning money.
The days of general aviation airports standing alone are over. They are forever coupled with our national system. Planning today is not counting hangers and ramp space, but a complex business view of airports from a regional perspective. Regional means beyond one's State's borders.
In Tennessee we are within weeks of starting a systems plan that was equally funded by FAA and the State, to look across all the business needs of our aviation airports. On a regional basis across the State's lines to determine flyability and assess needs. An increase in the State's apportionment under AIP to 20 percent will allow for a more balanced Federal/State participation and planning.
The State block grant program is a success we should call victory and move on and increase the program, so other States could join on. Tennessee has been fortunate in the State block grant program. It has helped FAA. It has helped them reduce cost. It has increased some of our work, but essentially it is a good program and we need to move forward and bring in more States.
A near cousin to the State block grant program is to allow States flexibility in applying Federal matching funds and new ways or innovative ways of financing airport projects. Also, allowing the States to use State construction standards on FAA makes sense. We know what will best stand up to the climate to use in our States, and the FAA's one-standard-fits-all is expensive.
The last AIP issue is a recommendation to reaffirm Congress' attempt that all existing grant assurances remain in effect at airports. As I said earlier, airports do not stand alone. A local decision to close an airport will affect more than one airport. Your reaffirming of grant assurances will deter quick local decisions to close an airport that has value to the national system that taxpayer dollars from all over the country have paid into.
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Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I stand by for your questions, sir.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, Director Vogt, let me say it is always a privilege to have a fellow Tennessean here, and I was pleased to be able to work with you and the staff and the FAA to get Tennessee included in the State block grant program. I know that you are really moving our State into the forefront in the national aviation system. So thank you for being with us.
We are going to go for first questions to Ranking Member Lipinski.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I welcome everyone on the panel here this afternoon. Yes, it is this afternoon. First of all, Representative Bray, Chairwoman Bray, Ways and Means Committee, right?
Ms. BRAY. That is correct.
Mr. LIPINSKI. How long have you been in the legislature?
Ms. BRAY. I am just beginning my seventh year, in my fourth term.
Mr. LIPINSKI. You mentioned that in Missouri that aviation revenues raised are dedicated for aviation purposes. Is that typical in most States? Has the National Council of State Legislatures ever compiled a survey on that issue?
Ms. BRAY. Yes, sir, I believe that that is correct; that most States do dedicate their funds, but we can get that report to you.
Mr. LIPINSKI. I would appreciate that very much.
Your testimony is generally supportive of the use of alternate financing mechanisms such as State revolving funds. Does you State use such mechanisms in other transportation-related projects? If so, how have such mechanisms performed?
Ms. BRAY. Yes, actually, we just started that this past year with our modes of transportation other than highways, and there was some skepticism on the part of the legislature, but it has been very successful in its first year. There is sort of a demand for more funding.
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Mr. LIPINSKI. I have some general questions which on the first—everybody can raise their hand if you support it. If you don't raise your hand, keep your hand down.
[Laughter.]
On the first one, in regard to the PFC, Ms. Hallett I know doesn't have to raise her hand on that one, but what about the rest of the panel over there? Are you in support of an increase in the passenger facility charge?
Ms. BRAY. After everything else is done.
[Laughter.]
Mr. LIPINSKI. Oh, yes, that is all right. We have got—up or down there.
Mr. RUANE. The Alliance does not have a position on the PFC. Many of our members, though, freight organizations, are actively supporting the increase of the PFC, but the Alliance per se is focused solely on the trust funds off-budget issue.
Mr. LIPINSKI. OK, good, which you will win, I think, 4 to 2. I'm not so sure about that guy from Tennessee on the end there; I think he put his hand up, but I think he dropped it quickly.
[Laughter.]
Mr. VOGT. The guy from Tennessee probably supports NASAO is we're not mute on the subject, but I think it is a marketplace-driven item, and if it needs to be raised, it needs to be raised. If it frees up other resources, AIP for smaller airports, then I believe the Association would be for that.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. Carol.
Ms. HALLETT. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. I feel that it is very important to share with you why we do not believe there is any reason to have a PFC tax increase. The reason is because you and your colleagues are supporting the unlocking of the trust funds. By doing that, there will be more than sufficient funding. In fact, while I mentioned in my comments this morning that there would be, at the end of next year, an $8 billion surplus just over the next 10 years, that means the surplus that will be available at the end of this year, we would see a total of $2 billion a year-plus going to PFCs.
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Now just taking that a step further, we are also told that over the next 10 years there may, in fact, be a $60 billion surplus in the aviation trust funds. I think it is almost unconscionable for any tax increase for PFCs to be introduced and maybe that is why none is being introduced in the Senate. I would hope they, too, are supporting unlocking of the trust funds, because we will not need to have a new tax increase with those kinds of surpluses available, and we are suggesting that that is how that surplus money should be spent from the $8 billion that we will have at the end of next year alone.
I think there are a number of other things that I would like to say.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Carol, excuse me. If I may reclaim my time——
Ms. HALLETT. Thank you.
[Laughter.]
Certainly.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Fortunately, my poll won 4 to 2, but I wanted to give you every opportunity, once again, to express your opposition to the PFCs.
Ms. HALLETT. I appreciate that.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Hopefully, the Senate will find some enlightened individual that will realize the wisdom of the PFC. You talk about the surplus in the trust fund. We also allegedly are going to have a surplus over 15 years in the General Revenue Fund of $5.7 trillion. I wouldn't want to really hang my hat on either one of those two surpluses. I won't say any more about the PFC other than I support it, if you don't have any opportunity to say any more.
Does everybody here support taking the trust fund off of budget? Raise your hand if you do.
[All witnesses raise their hands.]
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Good. That one was 6 to nothing. Are you getting this down, Mr. Chairman?
[Laughter.]
What about lifting the—no, I won't even ask that question. My time is up. I yield my time back to the chairman. Thanks.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. Mr. Sweeney.
Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome our distinguished witnesses on the panel.
We have had two days of hearings that I think are both appropriate and proper, as we move forward in this Year of Aviation. It coincides with Chairman Shuster's call for the Passenger Bill of Rights, which I support, and I am assuming most in the industry understand the need for it and support it.
I have a couple of questions. Ms. Hallett, I will give you an opportunity to jump right back in on a comparable issue. I will feed off my other questions.
On the prior panel, Patrick Murphy spoke of certain areas of the country that he termed ''pockets of pain,'' and at the risk of being accused of being a politician who acknowledged being in the pocket of anything, I am in the pocket of pain as well, where I come from in upstate New York.
You mention in your testimony that you support a more equitable distribution of AIP funds. Maybe you could elaborate briefly on that, and as it relates, in particular, to that vast group of smaller airports that exist in our Nation.
Ms. HALLETT. Yes, Congressman, because last year we did, in fact, testify before this committee on an AIP proposal that we continue to endorse. That is a proposal that has really been designed to ensure that the smaller airports will share in the funding that is designed, of course, for maintenance as well as other programs. But we want to make sure that that funding is maintained for the smaller airports, and that the larger airport shares be better focused on projects, which would, obviously, add to capacity, as well as to making the national system even more successful.
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But, in part, all of this would be accomplished by eliminating the large airport entitlements. There was discussion about that this morning, and then creating competition among the large airports for the discretionary funds. We feel that, through this proposal, it is going to bring far greater funding support to the smaller communities and the smaller airports, and I will be pleased to resubmit that AIP proposal to the committee, to the chairman, and send one directly to you. We would be happy to come and discuss that with you personally.
Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you. Well, I will go to the questions for Director Vogt first. You mention in your testimony that your State and your association is encouraging expanded uses of the revolving loan funds and State block grants. What proposals do you have specifically? How do we accomplish that? How do we get more States participating?
Mr. VOGT. Well, two issues: One, the State block grant program is to have Congress either force or make FAA open it up to those that voluntarily want to get involved with it. I am sure there are States around Tennessee that have very small staffs and may not be able to handle it right now. But if you put it on a volunteer basis, I believe you will have a number of States jumping right on it.
We only increased it—or you all increased it by two. That almost wasn't enough out there for some of the States that wanted to do it, to go after it with only two. Chairman Duncan from Tennessee—Tennessee was a solid, by the way, contender for this with or without Chairman Duncan, but that took one of them away possibly in other people's minds.
Mr. SWEENEY. As the great representative of aviation, I am sure that is absolutely true.
Mr. VOGT. Yes, sir, he is. He is. We are very fortunate.
As far as the other revolving funds, revolving loan funds, that just opens up dollars, and we can use public and private monies and revolving funds to open up some of the projects we are not able to do under current AIP restraints for money.
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Certainly, flexible financing or allowing the States to use 10 percent, 5 percent, 25 percent of their local money to match Federal money would also, again, spread the Federal monies that are made available across more airports. The 90/10 program, as it is established right now, you know, in some cases a local community could afford more. Then we could use those monies somewhere else in Tennessee.
Mr. SWEENEY. Mr. Ruane, you stated in your testimony that an increase in the PFC would help only large airports. I understand some of your members of the trades, in particular, still support that notion.
Administrator Garvey and the administration's proposals seem to contradict that claim. I guess, Director Bray, I would like to hear from you on this as well.
What provisions in their proposal—how do they make that claim and how you do differ from that claim with them?
Mr. RUANE. In our testimony, our source of that is the aviation community itself, the airport community, in particular. It is their judgment that the larger metropolitan areas would benefit more, and that is what the record shows, according to what we were informed prior to this testimony.
I am not sure exactly why Administrator Garvey would take an opposite view on that. I would think they are quoting from the same data. But our concern is to ensure that the existing monies that are collected are, in fact, used for their intended purpose. I think that is the disconnect. We note with interest the administration's support for setting aside the aviation side of the budget in a separate way, a firewall-type mechanism. Yet, they don't go ahead and support additional money for the AIP. So we are making some progress with the recommendations to treat the aviation funding differently, but, yet, they don't want to fund it fully.
Mr. SWEENEY. I have run out of time, and I have one more question for you. Director Bray, I hope to see you before we leave to talk a little bit about what we can do on the States' end of it.
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The President's budget would remove the General Fund contributions to the FAA. What is your position on the proposal? And if approved, what effect does it have on your membership?
Mr. RUANE. For our specific association, the American Road and Transportation Builders, we would argue very strongly for retention of General Fund support of the aviation system. I think there is adequate need for that. Earlier witnesses have commented on the military use, the general benefits that come from that. I think that is a compelling argument to keep General Fund support for aviation.
The Alliance itself does not have a position per se on general funding, but I suspect, if we polled them, most of them would argue very strongly for the support for general funding, as well as AIP, because of the need situation, because of the $3 billion shortfall every year in meeting the capital needs. With AIP, it is not enough; general funding is also needed, in our opinion.
Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Oberstar.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I had to step out during the testimony to meet with a group of future participants in the electoral process, students, Close-Up students from my district. But I have spent the time prior to the hearing to read the testimony that was submitted, and I very much appreciate the thought that has gone into your presentations.
Administrator Garvey said that, ''shifting away from General Fund support to full reliance on funding from users will produce a reliable funding stream that can respond to future aviation demands.'' I am very skeptical of that. From what I know, what the experience is, and what our principle has been, particularly in the operations account of the FAA budget, Mr. Ruane, you don't take a formal position on this, but you were involved with us in the Highway Trust Fund off-budget, and you know what a difference that made. We didn't hear any ringing endorsement of Trust Fund off-budget from the previous panel. I would like to get your comments on it.
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Mr. RUANE. Well, I think that the question you raised to the Administrator about her true personal feelings deep down in her heart, I would suspect, having worked so closely with her when she was a Deputy Federal Highway Administrator, that there is probably very strong support. I think the administration's proposal for not supporting this is coming from OMB and the White House, and not from the DOT directly. That is my opinion anyway. I think that many of the career administrators in the agency see the need for segregating this money. It is the only way to remove the incentive, particularly from the appropriators, of counting that surplus toward the deficit and the double-counting and phony accounting that is implicit in all that. I think that she is restricted by White House constraints.
Mr. OBERSTAR. But you would disagree with the notion that user fees can support the entire program of the FAA?
Mr. RUANE. I am equally skeptical. I share your skepticism there. I think the needs are so great, they are so well-documented, and there is a compelling argument for general support, that we need both.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. Let me pose the same question in a little different way to Representative Bray, and thank you, also, for bringing the perspective of a State legislator.
This may have been covered earlier, but aviation revenues in Missouri are dedicated to aviation purposes.
Ms. BRAY. That is correct.
Mr. OBERSTAR. How did you achieve that?
[Laughter.]
Ms. BRAY. Well, I think we actually finally did that in law last year. It was just something that appealed to everybody suddenly. It kind of surprised some folks.
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Mr. OBERSTAR. Have you passed that surprise on to other States?
Ms. BRAY. We will try. We will try to package that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. OBERSTAR. Not all States dedicate all their highway revenues to highway purposes.
Ms. BRAY. We do that. We do that, too.
Mr. OBERSTAR. So having it done for aviation purposes—well, that is good. That is good to hear. Thank you.
Mr. McNally, I think we have gone through a lot of the management culture changes that have been such a plague upon FAA and the relationship with controllers, and I think, finally, as I cited in development of STARS, we have controllers involved in design of the workstations, in design of the software, and the screen, and so forth. Are there additional areas that you feel need to be addressed in the controller-management working relationship at FAA?
Mr. MCNALLY. I'm sorry, sir. Can you repeat that? What is the question?
Mr. OBERSTAR. Are there additional areas of controller-management relationship you feel need to be addressed within the FAA?
Mr. MCNALLY. Yes, sir, and we are addressing them. Again, with Administrator Garvey, that has become a lot easier to deal with. We have a major culture problem—I think everybody recognizes that—on various levels, and we are working through that. Collaboration is where we are heading. Hopefully, we will continue to move down that road.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, I won't ask you to be specific about those. Perhaps you could submit for the record——
Mr. MCNALLY. Sure.
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Mr. OBERSTAR. —what areas need to be addressed further.
Mr. MCNALLY. It is predominantly within the actual management of air traffic control system itself. The culture has been, and remains, one of, I would say, militaristic style management culture. It doesn't fly in today's environment, 1998 [sic]. Shifting that is extremely difficult when you have a disjointed system, by virtue of the fact that you have over 300-and-something sites, and then trying to somehow standardize your management practices is very difficult when you are out there remote on your own.
So we are working through that right now. We are coming together, both organizations, and trying to tackle that on a national scale. That is our next major piece.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, these certainly are residuals of the early 1980's problems, and I think you are right. I think Ms. Garvey's management style is really making a difference.
Mr. MCNALLY. It certainly is.
Mr. OBERSTAR. She appears to be listening to you——
Mr. MCNALLY. Absolutely.
Mr. OBERSTAR. —front-line controllers.
You also addressed the question of STARS in your testimony. Are controllers now at this stage willing to hold firm on requirements, no more changes in requirements; get the system completed; put it in place, and then after you have worked with it for a while, make whatever changes may be necessary?
Mr. MCNALLY. Yes and no, sir. The yes part is requirements creep. We are not looking for additional requirements. We have identified the issues. Those 98 are the 98. That was done. Now working the fixes is another question. As long as they are all fixed and we have suitable fixes to those problems, then, for sure, we are ready to roll.
But as far as the requirements themselves, we are not doing a requirements creep. We are not looking for more bells and whistles, to spend more money and delay.
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Mr. OBERSTAR. Let's all join hands and get this system rolling, get it installed.
Ms. Hallett, ATA proposes establishment of an air traffic control board of directors. By the way, let me compliment you on the distinguished leadership that you have provided at ATA.
Ms. HALLETT. Thank you.
Mr. OBERSTAR. You are, I think, the longest surviving president of that association, and that is a compliment.
[Laughter.]
Ms. HALLETT. Thank you very much.
Mr. OBERSTAR. You would propose a chief operating officer to run the ATC system. The board, according to what I understand, would establish performance standards, chaired by the FAA, have six public members. We don't have the details.
If this means that the air traffic control system would no longer be part of the FAA, would no longer be supervised and fundamentally controlled by the Administrator, I would be concerned about that. When we first addressed this issue, an air traffic control corporation—well, you heard my words. I don't take those back at all; I insist on them. The corporation proposed by the administration would have had authority over operations; the Administrator would have authority over safety—a bifurcated system; change the system we have today in which there is accountable. Ultimately, the Administrator is accountable and responsible for operations and safety, and the FAA works together as a team to promote both safety and efficiency. The system has insured safety, and with the participation and cooperation of the air carriers.
In your maintenance programs you are spending over $9.5, maybe $10 billion a year on maintenance, your carriers whom you represent. We haven't had a single accident in the last year in air carrier operations, a single fatality. A terrific record. We are getting better, and ATC is getting better. I would be concerned about splitting this up.
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Ms. HALLETT. Well, Mr. Oberstar, I appreciate your comments, and I would also point out that the chairman of the board would be the FAA Administrator. It has always been my experience that anyone who chairs the board is in charge. Clearly, that is the intent here as well. The board members would assist, but I would also point out—and maybe more importantly—the COO would do the day-to-day operation for the chairman of the board and the board, and the COO would have daily authority to make sure that things were running efficiently and smoothly, but the No. 1 priority, starting with the chairman of the board, would be safety.
We cannot afford, anyone, to diminish safety, no matter what we do. I would also point out this is not a corporatization; this is not a privatization; this remains a part of the FAA with the chairman of the board being the current Administrator, and the next Administrator and the next Administrator after that.
This is something that certainly we look forward to working with you and the members of the committee and the chairman on this issue. This has literally just approved by our board, and we feel that this is an exciting opportunity to have a focus on the ATC system that has much more to be done than simply having the organizational part of it functioning well.
Equally important is the modernization. We have talked this morning about making sure that the money is there for STARS and WAAS and GPS, and all of the other very important programs that have been discussed in this committee for some time. We are concerned about those programs. At the same time, we feel that, with the programs that will go forward in the future, with the necessary funding available by unlocking the trust funds, that we will finally be able to devote the monies to getting those programs and those functions done on time.
I look forward not only tomorrow to discuss this with you, but in the future. So that we all will be able to come out with something that is advantageous to, first of all, the passengers, and next, to all of the rest of us who are concerned about it.
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Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. We appreciate that clarification. It is reassuring to hear your emphasis on safety. We will need further dialog on this subject.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the time.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Bass.
Mr. BASS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just have one question.
As a Representative from a rural district, a pilot myself, I am concerned about the fact that the number of general aviation airports in this country has declined from roughly 6,800 in 1970 to 5,000 today. A couple of them actually have been closed in my own district. I am wondering if any of you have any perspective as to how we might address that problem in the FAA reauthorization.
Ms. BRAY. I would just say that I am not sure about the actual number of airports throughout the history of Missouri, but I know that, since we became a State block grant program, that we have been able to build five new airports. So that has been helpful to us, to be a block grant State.
Mr. VOGT. Congressman Bass, Fred Vogt. I think the loss of some of those airports, they tend to be small, in some cases grass strips. There are hundreds, literally hundreds, of grass strips around Tennessee that are coming and going. We have not lost an airport in Tennessee in the last 10 years that we didn't expect to lose and we didn't build another existing airport to improve it.
It is a grassroots effort. The answer is in a grassroots effort. We put out a video that has been used across the State and outside the State, showing the importance of that airport to the local communities. It is meant for the Rotary Clubs; it is meant for the Chambers. They put it on. You have to build that support from the local area.
In Tennessee—and I am sure it is with the other States—most of the airports are owned by the communities. If you can't convince the community how important it is for the businesses around there, then you fail at that level.
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Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you.
Mr. BASS. There is another comment.
Mr. DUNCAN. Oh, excuse me. I am sorry.
Mr. OLCOTT. Mr. Bass, if I may comment—I am Jack Olcott, National Business Aviation Association. Aviation is truly an integrated system in our country and it is a national asset. In reauthorization, if Congress makes the point that air transportation is a requirement for economic development and improved way of life, and that aviation in this country is a national resource, you will send the right message. General aviation is the feedstock for aviation in our country. The future airline pilots will come from general aviation. The people who devote a career to military aviation will probably have that commitment made when they are youngsters, and that commitment will be spurred by general aviation. Consequently, we need to elevate the priority for all of aviation, including general aviation.
Mr. BASS. If I could just conclude, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. DUNCAN. Yes, sir, go right ahead.
Mr. BASS. In addition to what you all have talked about, general aviation airports are, indeed, small, and most of the ones that close are small. They are flat. They are cleared. They are excellent—usually near communities—excellent potential sites for development, alternative uses. Two in the State of New Hampshire have closed in the last 15 years or so, and they have been turned into housing developments. I really don't know what we can do in the FAA reauthorization to try to maintain these airports, because once you eliminate a small airport, you can never ever re-establish again, obviously, or usually nothing anywhere else in the area. I think it is a shame that we don't maintain these airports because they are potentially so critical to the overall transportation structure and development of this country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Bass.
Leading from that, Mr. Vogt, yesterday, Phil Boyer of AOPA suggested that we need to make a greater effort to get local zoning authorities to do more to protect these existing general aviation airports. Is your organization doing anything like that or looking into that at all?
Mr. VOGT. Yes, sir. At every conference we attend and we hold, we talk about zoning. It is a discussion from hoping FAA, whenever they build a new airport, puts an assurance in there that zoning will be part of the new airport, so we don't have some downstream problems when it comes forward.
I think each individual State is very aggressive in making sure that zoning is part of grant assurances on a State level. You can do so much as far as cajole, push, and shove local zoning down on small communities, but, again, it doesn't work unless it is a grassroots effort. NASAO, by their individual States, have worked very hard to keep the zoning around airports clear, but it has got to start at the individual States.
I know Mr. Bass is talking about New Hampshire and loss of airports. Your State director is involved in working on a video right now. He is looking forward to an assistance plan, to really identify the needs in New Hampshire of all those airports. When you start doing those system plans, which I mention in my remarks that Tennessee is about ready to start, you bring a lot of looks at your airport system. You bring people in that before haven't even bothered it at all. So I think there is some movement there, and I know that, again, it is a grassroots effort.
Mr. DUNCAN. Ms. Hallett, I asked Administrator Garvey what her recommendation would be if an increase in PFCs was not passed. To be fair about it, let me ask you in a little slightly different way. If we are unsuccessful in taking the aviation trust funds off-budget, what would you say to people who would say that the airlines are coming off of four or five of the best years in their history? And then, also, there was a report on the national news last night, or night before last, that they have gotten a $2 billion windfall in reduced fuel costs. So do you think it is harder to justify opposition to a proposed increased in PFCs if we are unsuccessful in taking the trust funds off-budget?
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Ms. HALLETT. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think the first way to deal with that would be to actually spend the trust fund money, not allow it to—even if we do not unlock the trust funds, spend the trust fund money; allow that money to go to AIP. The proposal that I discussed previously about AIP is one of the ways in which you are able to get more funding for the local or the smaller community airports, and that, then, allows for the PFCs that are already being collected to be utilized at the larger airports.
More importantly, I think that it is essential that we look optimistically and unlock the trust funds, because that money simply should not be going to other purposes in transportation. It should remain in the area for which it was collected, and that is aviation.
But, secondly, just to go on to answer the rest of your question, one of the problems that we have, of course, is that people forget that the PFCs are collected from the passengers, and that is an amount of money that will actually continue to grow, even at the $3 PFC. As you know, we had approximately 615 million passengers fly this past year. That number in the next few years will grow to over a billion passengers. There will be significant increases in the PFC dollars available.
In the unlikely event that the unlocking does not take place, there will be a continuous growth in that funding, and we look forward to working with you on this.
Mr. DUNCAN. We will be holding a hearing or hearings on this, I suppose, probably next month. But any preliminary thoughts on the proposals for a Passengers' Bill of Rights?
Ms. HALLETT. Well, we are certainly—and I discussed this yesterday afternoon with Chairman Shuster—we are certainly very much aware of his concerns, and that of others. We are always anxious to work with all of you when you have concerns, and I have already offered to Chairman Shuster that we have the opportunity to sit down at a roundtable with he and others to further discuss this. But I think it is fair to say that our carriers on a daily basis ask themselves, how can we do a better job? They will continue to do that.
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I would also suggest that, as we have roundtables, we not limit it to concerns you may have as it relates to Passenger Bill of Rights. We have made this same suggestion to Secretary Slater, and we have had two meetings with him to discuss a variety of issues, and look forward to doing it with you as well, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you.
Ms. Bray, you mentioned some success in getting your aviation funds dedicated to aviation, and that you built five new airports in Missouri. From your perspective in studying these issues, and particularly what you see in Missouri, what is the main aviation problem that you see in Missouri or the main problems? What problems do you have there in Missouri? Do you have underserved airports? Or what are your main concerns?
Ms. BRAY. Well, I think that our major areas of concern have been having enough money to do what needs to be done. We do have a five-year plan. We do have our list of priorities. So we know what we need to do. These five airports we built were strategically placed for the economic development of the various regions. So I think we have done a good job with very limited money and limited staff. We got into this block grant program with very limited staff, and that is why I think we are so surprised we have done as well as we have.
But we do a good job of assessing our needs. I think it is a matter of having the money to get down that list.
I just recall, too, another reason we may have passed that bill last year. I had forgotten. Our governor got his pilot's license last year.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DUNCAN. We are really supposed to be out of this room. Mr. Olcott, let me just ask you—I know you got a little bit into your opposition to user fees. Did you hear Ms. Garvey say that, because general aviation is left out, she feels that really your opposition is just primarily based on the foot-in-the-door argument. What do you say in response to that?
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Mr. OLCOTT. The real loser in user fees will be the American public. A transportation system like aviation benefits people who never fly in the system. As a result, the only equitable way to distribute costs is through some level of general taxation. We feel, on principle, that there should be a General Fund contribution.
The second issue is the creeping dependence on a 100 percent user-funded system. Eventually, general aviation will be included within that, regardless of whether it is in direct ATC user fees or in higher fuel taxes. The bottom line is that the air transportation system of this country is a national resource; there should be some level of national funding.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Well, thank you very much. You have been a very fine panel and very helpful to us.
That will conclude this hearing.
[Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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