Regional Affairs

State threat to Santa Monica thwarted for second year

The California Senate Appropriations committee last week killed a bill that would have created a task force to analyze air quality studies for Santa Monica Municipal Airport. AOPA had successfully worked to remove language that would have required another environmental study involving collecting taxi and idle times of general aviation aircraft at the airport. "We hope this marks the end of legislative efforts to impose another unnecessary environmental study at Santa Monica," said Greg Pecoraro, AOPA vice president of regional affairs. "This is the second year that state lawmakers rejected legislation affecting this vital airport." So far, there have been seven environmental studies of the airport. AOPA believes the studies will be used to restrict operations at Santa Monica, a move that could ultimately threaten all California airports.

September 7, 2007