AOPA and AOPA Legislative Action have been in the business of protecting general aviation in Washington, D.C., long enough to know that nobody in that city gives up easily. The Clinton administration trotted out user fees for FAA services again this year, dressed up in new clothes but with the same smell.
The administration has always used the threat that "the sky is falling," and the FAA will face a huge funding gap as a result of the budget-balancing efforts of the administration and Congress. But AOPA Legislative Action has offered solutions for any funding problems the FAA might face — solutions that would not require replacing our current aviation taxes with user fees.
As part of our successful struggle to defeat user fees last year, we said that the FAA should try to reform its bloated personnel and procurement bureaucracy, improve its management, and allow an independent commission to look at its finances prior to any changes in the current funding structure. Congress listened, passed these reforms, and set up the National Civil Aviation Review Commission (NCARC) to examine the FAA's funding needs.
Refusing to give up, the White House began the year by once again asking for a 100-percent user fee-funded FAA starting in 1999 as part of its budget proposal to Congress. Now the administration has taken the purpose of NCARC — to bring all parties together to search for the facts and find common ground — and turned it on its head.
The law creating NCARC gave President Clinton the power to appoint 13 of the 21 commissioners to "represent a balanced view of the issues important to general aviation, major air carriers, air cargo carriers, regional air carriers, business aviation, airports, aircraft manufacturers, the financial community, aviation industry workers, and airline passengers." Instead, NCARC will be comprised almost totally of airline and large airport interests. Eight appointees come from the airline world or Boeing, and at least eight come from the airport community (airport management, city government, or the airport bonding process).
What's worse, unlike the airline representatives who served on the 1993 airline commission, these appointees aren't even CEOs of their respective air carriers — they are paid lobbyists! Appointees Sylvia De Leon (American Airlines), Bob Frenzel (United Parcel Service), Richard Hirst (Northwest), Fred McClure (Southwest), and Scott Yohe (Delta) all represent airlines as lobbyists or work in corporate affairs — two as "outside counsel," not as direct employees of the airline. A CEO is in a better position to see the big picture and seek solutions that work for the good of the aviation industry as a whole, but I doubt that a lobbyist will have the freedom to look past his or her employer's bottom line. These appointees have a clear conflict of interest.
It's unconscionable that of 21 commissioners, not one appointee officially represents general aviation. Pilots and aircraft owners and operators could be the latest victims of taxation without representation. NCARC could have been our best opportunity for a very productive forum and a possible resolution of these issues. But this commission is so unbalanced, it won't fly.
Don't get me wrong. Many of the people among the administration's choices are highly qualified, such as the former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Representative Norm Mineta, who will chair the commission. And the airlines and mega-airports obviously have a right to be represented. But general aviation and other aviation interests that were left out should have a seat at the table too.
Congress ordered an independent assessment of the FAA's funding needs for the commission's use. That study, performed by the consulting firm of Coopers & Lybrand and released in March, debunks the administration's claim of an FAA funding crisis. More precisely, Coopers & Lybrand says that the FAA could face a crisis if it keeps up with business as usual — bloated bureaucracy, poor management, and bad accounting. But the study identifies seven areas in which the FAA could improve to avoid a funding crisis. The report bluntly states that the FAA "can't manage money."
I think the report states our case well: don't throw more money at the FAA until it makes better use of the funds it has. But will the NCARC members listen?
AOPA Legislative Action even offered the White House a list of possible commission members. We chose these people for their knowledge and service to aviation as a whole, not for their general aviation support: former Representative Jim Lightfoot; former Senator Nancy Kassebaum; former senator and astronaut Jake Garn; former Secretary of Transportation Sam Skinner; former FAA Administrator James Busey; the president of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Steven Sliwa; Cessna Aircraft CEO Russell Meyer; former General Aviation Manufacturers Association President Ed Stimpson; and Mineta.
Other than Mineta, we ended up with a roomful of airline and big-airport people, with no representation of general aviation, GA manufacturers, business aviation, regional airlines, or airline passengers.
At this point, I see little hope that anything fair or constructive can come from a commission so unbalanced that its decisions will never get off the ground. Obtaining full industry and congressional support for its findings will be difficult, if not impossible.
Consider this telling bit of information. The nation's seven largest airlines, the "Big Seven," are pushing hard for some kind of change in the current aviation tax system that will shift some of the taxes their passengers pay, through the current 10-percent ticket tax, to their competitors' passengers. Top-ranking executives for three of the airlines appeared on the infamous list of people who had coffee with the president or vice president on the grounds of the White House. Overall, the Big Seven airlines gave more than half a million dollars in so-called "soft money" to the Democratic National Committee.
All of these distractions will force AOPA Legislative Action to continue the fight, on your behalf, against user fees — instead of working with the administration on real reform. I'm disappointed but not surprised.
