For Immediate Release                                                                                                 Contact:  Jim Berard

Tuesday, October 28, 2003                                                                                                     (202) 225-4472

 

 

Oberstar Calls for Full, Fair FAA Conference

 

Says conferees must address ATC, training, cabotage, EAS issues

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WASHINGTON—As the House prepared to recommit the conference report on the four-year FAA reauthorization bill to the conference committee, the Ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee called for a full, fair debate on the legislation.

 

Speaking on the floor of the House, Rep. James L. Oberstar (Minn.), decried the previous meeting of the conference committee in which Members were asked to approve a “conceptual” conference report on the bill (HR 2115, Flight 100-Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act), and had no legislative language to examine.

 

“In the 24 years I have served on conference committees, it was the first time I have been to a conference that did not have legislative language,” Oberstar said

 

At the time, Republican leaders said the unusual conference was necessary in order to pass the conference report quickly.  “That was 94 days ago,” Oberstar pointed out.

 

The most controversial issue in the bill is language prohibiting the privatization of the federal air traffic control system.  The conference report language is weaker than what was contained in either the House or Senate versions of the original bill.  Further, the legislation identifies 69 of 71 towers as eligible for immediate privatization, exempting two towers in Alaska, the committee chairman’s home state.

 

Oberstar said there are indications that the Republican leadership will simply strip the privatization language from the bill in an attempt to sell the move as a compromise.

 

“That’s the poison pill,” Oberstar said.  “The current law is the President’s executive order stating that air traffic control is not an inherently governmental service.  That then opens the whole system up for privatization.”

 

Oberstar also objected to the Republicans’ practice of  “trading towers,” offering to protect individual control towers from privatization in order to win votes for the conference report.

 

“If you take this to its logical conclusion, eventually all of the Members who vote for privatization will not have the towers in their districts privatized, and the towers that are privatized will all be in districts where the Members opposed privatization,” Oberstar said.

 

Oberstar said the resulting conference report is flawed in three other areas:

• It makes anti-terrorism training for airline cabin crews voluntary instead of mandatory;
• It provides foreign carriers with exemptions from U.S. cabotage laws if they enter the country via Anchorage, Alaska; and
• It requires small communities to pay the cost of air service under the Essential Air Service program.

 

He went on to call upon the leadership of the committee to hold a full and open conference.

 

“Let’s do commit this bill to conference.  And I appeal to the chairman of the subcommittee and chairman of the full committee to have a real conference, not a sham.  Let’s gather the Members together.  Let’s have full debate.  Let’s have a discussion of the merits of the issues.  Let’s have real give-and-take as we’ve done time and again historically in House-Senate conferences on aviation legislation.  Let’s do it the right way, not this back-door sham way,” Oberstar said.

 

 

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