President's Position

At the midpoint of this year, I am pleased to report that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to unlock the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, and that AOPA membership topped 350,000 for the first time in our 60-year history. Why would I link these two very distinct achievements? Read on, because it is the AOPA member support of important issues that gets the impossible done in Washington, D.C.

The trust-fund legislation was a long shot at best, and many aviation organizations didn't enlist early member support because they were afraid of offending the opposing side. Such was not the case with your association.

AIR-21, sponsored by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), is a comprehensive bill that authorizes the FAA and Airport Improvement Program (AIP) for another five years. Shuster, who declared 1999 the "Year of Aviation," added to AIR-21 his legislation to take the trust fund off-budget.

Taking the trust fund off-budget would free trust-fund spending from the annual cap that is imposed on overall government spending. Because aviation users pay the taxes that feed the trust fund — including general aviation's fuel tax — aviation should not have to compete with other programs for funding under the cap.

This encouraging victory for aviation came after a vigorous campaign by AOPA. In this column more than a year ago I kicked off our effort, calling for action on the heels of Rep. Shuster's success in taking the Highway Trust Fund off-budget (see " President's Position: Aviation's Trust Fund," July 1998 Pilot).

With more than 350,000 members to call on, AOPA was at the forefront of the grassroots campaign for this important bill. We coordinated our efforts with Rep. Shuster's staff and other transportation groups. I'm proud to report that thousands of members responded to our repeated appeals and alerts in support of this legislation. Capitol Hill was flooded with your letters, faxes, e-mails, and telephone calls.

In April, I used this space to call on all pilots to contact their representatives in support of this bill (see " President's Position: Call to Action," April Pilot). AOPA Online gave readers a special background report on the issue, as well as links to the text of the bill and to a site where they could find their representatives' names.

In recent weeks some of you were the recipients of a unique, targeted Western Union Mailgram. This was sent to AOPA members living in districts whose representatives had cosponsored the highway bill last year but hadn't yet committed on the aviation bill. Other AOPA members received ballots in support of the bill to sign and send to us for delivery to Chairman Shuster. At our Pilot Town Meetings nationwide over the past year I have been briefing many of you in person and urging you to join the cause. Your AOPA Legislative Affairs staff and I made visits to Capitol Hill. When we found that a member of Congress might lean our way, we focused more effort on that legislator.

The result of all this activity was not only a win, but also a respectable margin of victory. Few expected the measure to win by 69 votes. One reason the vote eluded prediction was that it didn't fall along political party lines. Taking the trust fund off-budget enjoyed broad support from both Republicans and Democrats, including Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the transportation committee's senior Democrat and aviation expert.

The strong victory gives us momentum as we move to the Senate, where the support is only lukewarm. Media reports indicate that three or four senators have expressed interest, including the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee's senior Demo-crat, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, and Democratic Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The Senate may take months to deliberate the bill.

Once the Senate passes its version of the bill, a House-Senate conference committee will meet to work out the differences, and the final product must then be approved by both chambers. Even if it reaches this stage, Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater has said he would recommend that President Clinton veto any bill that takes the trust fund off-budget. Secretary Slater's position reveals the cynical games that the Clinton administration is playing with aviation. For years the administration complained of a lack of a reliable funding source for FAA modernization and called for user fees. Yet when we present them with a solution that provides all the necessary funds without raising taxes, they reject it. This certainly underscores the real reason they want user fees — to reduce accountability to taxpayers and increase funding for other nonaviation programs.

Nevertheless, if the president must accept the Truth in Budgeting Act in order to enact AIR-21 and the FAA programs that it authorizes, he may choose to embrace the whole package. The House vote for final passage of AIR-21 was greater than the two-thirds needed to override a veto, and that sends a clear message to the White House. Remember, this is the same president who proclaimed in 1994 that he would veto any tort reform legislation — but then signed the General Aviation Revitalization Act, which included product liability reform.

The coming months will bring even greater challenges for all of us. The Senate will probably require even more pressure from AOPA members to pass this bill. By reaching the record 350,000-member mark, however, we are stronger than ever. Our victory in the House proves that a simple letter to your elected representative, along with 349,999 others, can make the difference between failure and fulfilling the promise of the Year of Aviation.