AOPA opposes House ATC privatization proposal
Senate funding bill leaves ATC as part of FAA
The U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives have vastly different views of the future of the FAA. With funding running out soon and a long-term FAA spending plan long overdue, the House in June introduced a proposal that would strip air traffic control out of the FAA and give it to a private nonprofit corporation. A privatization proposal announced by President Donald Trump had included user fees, but the House proposal does not include user fees on general aviation. The Senate bill, released just a day later, leaves ATC intact.
The Senate legislation would extend FAA funding authorization for four years, through September 2021, and includes the FLIGHT Act, as well as GA pilot protections from the Pilot’s Bill of Rights 2.
AOPA President and CEO Mark Baker said AOPA supports the Senate bill. “AOPA supports the Senate FAA reauthorization legislation which will allow the U.S. air traffic control system to continue to be the safest and most efficient in the world, preserves the public benefit that access to aviation brings to rural communities, gives local airports more flexibility to build and repair infrastructure, provides pilots more common-sense protections, and further facilitates the important role general aviation plays in emergencies.”
Meanwhile, AOPA and five other general aviation industry organizations issued a joint statement opposing the House’s ATC privatization proposal. The GA groups took issue with the proposed ATC governing board and what it would mean for GA. While acknowledging that the bill would not impose user fees on any segment of GA, the groups expressed concern that the protections for GA could be removed from the proposed new structure.
“A privatization proposal that requires protections for a large segment of aviation has a high potential for unintended consequences, as well as increased costs and uncertainty,” Baker said.
The statement thanked Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Shuster for his “meaningful and thoughtful” work to improve ATC, but went on to say privatization “will produce uncertainty and unintended consequences without achieving the desired outcomes.”
FLIGHT Act takes off in Senate
AOPA supports legislation to reform grants, designate disaster-relief airports
A bipartisan bill known as the FLIGHT Act (S.B.1320), or Forward Looking Investment in GA, Hangars and Tarmacs, was introduced in the U.S. Senate in June. The legislation would give general aviation airports an expedited environmental review process and allow greater flexibility in spending allocated funds on infrastructure projects that will ensure a safer, more effective national network of GA airports. As it stands, airports are granted $150,000 in annual funds under the Non-Primary Entitlement (NPE) program. Under the FLIGHT Act, airports would be given greater flexibility to roll over their annual entitlement from the current four years to five years, for a total of $750,000. The legislation also would authorize the FAA to reduce the local match for certain nonprimary airport projects to 5 percent.
“The FLIGHT Act addresses the growing needs of our nation’s system of airports by providing the FAA with long overdue flexibility it needs to fund important projects,” said AOPA President Mark Baker. “Maintaining and upgrading runways, taxiways, and aprons, and meeting the need for new hangars, helps keep airports and communities vibrant and competitive. This bill also takes a critically important step in recognizing the vital role that reliever airports play in natural disaster relief efforts.”
With a lower requirement for matching funds and the ability to bank their entitlement for five years, airports have much more flexibility to meet development plans, such as a costly runway repair project. The legislation also would allow the FAA to designate “Disaster Relief Airports.” This new category of airports would be provided at least 4 percent of NPE funds for emergency planning, equipment, or facilities in the case of natural disasters. Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) are the sponsors of the legislation (see “Guest Editorial: Take FLIGHT,” page 28).
AOPA proposes makeover for ‘VFR not recommended’
“VFR not recommended” is a familiar cautionary statement to generations of pilots who learned to fly in pre-digital times, when most weather briefings consisted of a phone call between a pilot and an FAA flight service specialist. But there is no automated equivalent of the statement in the era of electronic sources of weather data. The FAA has begun research to measure the present effectiveness of “VFR not recommended.” AOPA believes that making a decision about the usefulness of “VFR not recommended” should be a top-priority task for the FAA’s flight service. And AOPA emphasizes that “VFR not recommended” should not be eliminated—as was done in Canada. “Instead, we contend that VNR and its concept should be evaluated for improvement to become an effective intervention for those pilots who may be considering a flight that could result in VFR into IMC,” said AOPA, urging that the FAA study consider a solution for pilots who receive their weather via automation, and for those who still get their weather from a briefer.
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