March 16, 2000
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Looking toward the rapid expansion of air travel, the House yesterday approved and sent to the president legislation that would significantly increase spending on airport safety and modernization. It also could mean higher taxes on tickets.
"This legislation will make our skies safer, modernize air traffic control, reduce flight delays and boost airline competition," said Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., the House Transportation Committee chairman.
It passed 319-101.
The bill, strongly supported by the administration, authorizes spending of $40 billion over the next three years for airport improvements and Federal Aviation Administration operations. Available funds in fiscal 2001 would be $12.7 billion, up $2.7 billion over this year.
The final bill, the result of months of sometimes arduous negotiations between the House and the Senate, boosts the FAA's facilities and equipment budget by almost 50 percent in order to modernize air traffic control systems.
It approves an increase in flights out of Chicago's O'Hare, Washington's Reagan National and New York's LaGuardia and JFK airports, and allows airports to raise their passenger taxes, used for local airport improvements, from $3 to $4.50. That would cost travelers an extra $700 million a year.
The bill seeks to aid small-market airports hurt by deregulation in the airline industry by doubling minimum funding to $1 million a year and helping airlines buy regional jets if they agree to use them to serve small airports.
The legislation requires new criminal background checks and training for airport security personnel. It amends a 1920 law that bars families of those lost in air disasters at sea -- such as the 1996 TWA 800 crash that killed 230 people -- from collecting damages except "economic damages," such as lost wages.
The bill also regulates commercial air tours over national parks.
Both the House and Senate passed FAA bills last year, but failed to come up with a compromise. The chief problem was Senate resistance to Shuster's demand that the Aviation Trust Fund, which collects some $10 billion in user fees a year, be separated from the general federal budget to ensure that the money coming into the fund is used exclusively for aviation projects.
In the compromise bill, the fund remains in the general budget but lawmakers agreed that aviation spending should at least equal the revenues and interest from the fund.
