No Consensus Yet on Aviation Taxes As FAA Deadline Nears
Congressional Quarterly Today
7/12/2007

 

The Senate Finance Committee Thursday began grappling with how to fund a transition to a new air traffic control system, though no consensus has yet emerged with less than three months left to act.

The Finance Committee must decide whether to adjust fuel taxes on commercial and general aviation aircraft to help pay for a multibillion-dollar, multi-decade transition to a new air traffic control system. The issue is being debated as part of a larger measure to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (S 1300).

"We will find a solution that I expect will be one that not everybody's going to love, but the hope is it's one that everybody will recognize as reasonable," said Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

But the longer it takes Finance to act, the more nervous stakeholders become about the feasibility of enacting a measure before the FAA's current authorization (PL 108-176) expires at the end of September. Expiring with it will be the fuel and ticket taxes that fund most of the federal aviation system.

"Some Finance aides had been talking about a markup in September, the same month the authorization expires, which is sure to mean an extension," one transportation lobbyist said.

For much of the past year, commercial and general aviation stakeholders have been at odds over whether to continue funding most of the aviation system with the current scheme of ticket and fuel taxes, or institute a new structure of fees more closely tied to actual usage of the system.

General aviation interests, which stand to pay more under most user fee proposals, say the current system of excise and ticket taxes works fine and that user fees proposed by the administration (HR 1356) amount to corporate welfare for airlines. Commercial airlines argue that the status quo saddles them with an unfair share of air traffic control costs compared with what general aviation pays.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va. chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Aviation subcommittee, came down strongly on the side of the commercial airline industry, saying its passengers should not have to "continue to subsidize corporate jets."

Rockefeller said if warring stakeholder groups cannot come up with a consensus funding solution to the modernization puzzle, he will "address the equity issue by looking for ways to limit the access of general aviation to congested airspace."

Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, ranking Republican on the aviation panel, said everyone wants air traffic control modernization, but without paying anything extra.

"For all of you laying over in the weeds saying 'I'm gonna get my part no matter what and by the way the airlines are going to pay for it,' forget it. We're going to have a fair bill or no bill and I'm prepared to go to the mat," Lott said.

Given their service on both Finance and Commerce, Rockefeller and Lott will be highly influential in shaping the financing package for the aviation bill.

 

User-Fee Battle Heats Up; Congress Keeps Options Open
aero-news.net
4/25/2007

Despite increasing rhetoric on both sides of the issue, there's still no clear winner in the ongoing battle engaging the FAA and the airline industry against general and business aviation to impose user fees. Meanwhile in Congress, indecision reigns, with the House unlikely to develop legislation to fully implement the FAA's legislative proposal but an even murkier picture forming in the Senate.

The FAA/airlines recently fired a salvo via an Associated Press story whining that airline ticket taxes are being used to develop airports used by business and general aviation. The non-scheduled industry shot back last week, announcing a new, national coalition of communities, small businesses and other organizations depending on general and business aviation and "dedicated to protecting small and rural communities" and their access to the national air transportation system. The new organization -- the Alliance for Aviation Across America (AAAA) -- last week boasted more than 2,200 members and stressed its support of "properly modernizing America’s air traffic control system to enhance safety, promote efficiency and expand capacity in order to ensure ALL Americans have access to air transportation."

Complementing that effort, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) this week unveiled its new Online Advocacy Center, which the organization bills as "a new Internet resource that provides information about, and resources for opposing, the big airlines' user fee funding proposal."