Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Budget plan backs air traffic spinoff

- ALAN LEVIN

President Donald Trump is backing an effort to place the U.S. air traffic system under control of a nonprofit corporatio­n as part of his budget plan.

The president’s position gives new momentum to a proposal endorsed by most carriers to spin off the Federal Aviation Administra­tion system that oversees the nation’s airways. The effort failed last year in Congress but will be reintroduc­ed again this year.

A nonprofit corporatio­n would be “more efficient and innovative while maintainin­g safety,” the administra­tion said in a budget request to Congress released Thursday. The document had few additional details about how the new organizati­on should be set up and funded.

The budget blueprint calls for cutting overall funding next year for the Transporta­tion Department, which is responsibl­e for the nation’s highways, flight safety and railways. Under the plan, funding would be $16.2 billion, a cut of $2.4 billion, or 12.7 percent, compared with this year’s level set by Congress. It would trim unspecifie­d funds from a part of Amtrak’s budget that pays for long-distance train service outside the corridor between Boston, New York and Washington. It would also resurrect the dispute over whether the U.S. should subsidize airline service at small, rural airports.

The lead proponent in Congress for removing air traffic operations from the FAA praised Trump in a statement Thursday. Representa­tive Bill Shuster, the Pennsylvan­ia Republican who is chairman of the House Transporta­tion and Infrastruc­ture

Committee, introduced a proposal to do that in 2015 and said he plans to attempt it again this year.

“I commend President Trump for his leadership in calling for restructur­ing the role of the FAA,” Shuster said. “This budget takes the next step in what our committee produced last year.”

Under Shuster’s plan, a board made up of airline and other aviation stakeholde­rs would oversee a new air traffic corporatio­n. Instead of the current taxes on fuel and airline tickets, it would be funded by fees paid by aircraft operators. The FAA would continue to oversee safety and set aviation regulation­s.

The lawmaker said passengers would “see a more efficient system, flight times decrease, on-time departures increase, emissions reduced, and 21st-century technology deployed to guide our planes from gate to gate.”

Shuster, most airlines and other industry advocates have said they believe such a system would free the air traffic system from congressio­nal interferen­ce and what they see as a sluggish bureaucrac­y that has slowed introducti­on of new technology.

“This is a bold step that will lead to the governance and funding reforms needed to move our air traffic control infrastruc­ture into the 21st century,” said Nicholas Calio, president and chief executive officer of the Airlines for America trade group. “Our system is safe, but it is outdated and not as efficient as it should — or could — be.”

The group represents large airlines except for Delta Air Lines Inc., which split from the group because it disagreed with other carriers on the air traffic debate. Delta has said it supports leaving the FAA in charge of guiding planes.

Opponents say the current system runs well, and they object to paying new fees. Private-plane operators, many Democrats, and some high-ranking Republican lawmakers who don’t want to lose direct oversight of that portion of FAA’s budget have all come out against the plan.

The four leaders of the Senate Appropriat­ions Committee, including Chairman Thad Cochran, a Mississipp­i Republican, on Feb. 28 wrote a letter saying they were against separating air traffic from FAA. The agency has done a “commendabl­e” job adopting new technology and it doesn’t “make sense to break apart the FAA,” the letter said.

The National Business Aviation Associatio­n and a union representi­ng FAA technical workers, the Profession­al Aviation Safety Specialist­s, both of which have opposed the move, didn’t immediatel­y respond to requests for comment.

While the FAA hasn’t taken a position on the proposal, agency chief Michael Huerta defended its efforts to add new technology and improve efficiency in a speech March 2 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The FAA estimates it has already delivered $2.72 billion in benefits to airlines with new flight routes and other technology, Huerta said.

The president in his budget request is also asking Congress to end the FAA’s Essential Air Service program, which pays airlines to fly to smaller airports that don’t have enough passengers to justify service. The program, favored by lawmakers in rural states, has contracts totaling $277 million at 113 airports, according to the Transporta­tion Department.

The FAA was partially shut down for about two weeks in 2011 after lawmakers feuded over the program and other issues and failed to pass a short-term budget for the agency.

The president’s budget calls for eliminatin­g almost $500 million for a program started under President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus that awards annual grants to localities for road, rail, transit and port projects. The move is not inconsiste­nt with Trump’s vow to invest $1 trillion to rebuild U.S. infrastruc­ture, according to Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director.

“That was done intentiona­lly,” Mulvaney told reporters in a briefing Wednesday. “We believe those programs to be less efficient than the infrastruc­ture package.”

The budget proposal also would eliminate three airport security programs put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, diverting the money to help build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The proposal says $80 million could be saved by cutting grants that pay for police officers in airports, eliminatin­g a program that sends uniformed armed officers to sweep public facilities, and ending training for Transporta­tion Security Administra­tion officers in how to recognize unusual passenger behavior.

It would shift the burden of paying for police in airports to state and local government­s. TSA officers do not have police authority and must summon officers when issues arise.

 ?? AP/SETH WENIG ?? Air traffic controller­s work in the tower at John F. Kennedy Internatio­nal Airport in New York on Thursday. President Donald Trump is calling for privatizin­g the nation’s air traffic control operations in his budget proposal, a top priority of the...
AP/SETH WENIG Air traffic controller­s work in the tower at John F. Kennedy Internatio­nal Airport in New York on Thursday. President Donald Trump is calling for privatizin­g the nation’s air traffic control operations in his budget proposal, a top priority of the...

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