James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Which was previously discussed in error because it was misnumbered?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Is a copy of the amendment at the desk?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I insist that the Clerk read the amendment so that we are clear on what we are debating here.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have reviewed a number of documents in the form of letters or memos issued just on the eve of the consideration of this legislation, and I want to make four points to reassure those who have expressed concerns about the effects of this bill on environmental procedures. One, the bill specifically provides there is no preemption or interference with any practice of seeking public comment or the authority of States or the authority of airport operators to decide on which projects they wish to undertake. Two, the bill does not give any new authority to the FAA to create exemptions from the environmental requirements. Three, States have a choice of whether they want to participate in a coordinated process. Four, if another agency does not comply with the coordinated schedule developed by DOT, the other agency does not lose its authority. It does have a remedy, a report to Congress. I think on balance we have taken into consideration the concerns expressed in the course of the hearing and subsequently about the effects of this legislation on environmental processes, and I urge the adoption of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Aviation.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the legislation pending before us, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) has just described has as its purpose to speed up construction of runways, taxiways, airside improvements at airports that have dragged on far too long in the past. Perhaps the most egregious example or comparison would be that of the Chek Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong, an airport built in the ocean in 300 meters of ocean depth, 12,500 feet runways, a 23-mile rail-truck highway link to downtown Kowloon, a terminal to handle 90,000 passengers, started at the same time as the third runway at Seattle. Chek Lap Kok has been completed at a cost of over $25 billion, is now handling 15 to 20 million passengers a year; and I was out in Seattle a year ago for the bulldozing of the first load of dirt to start work on the third Seattle runway. Now, that is an egregious example, as I said; but it is one that underscores the frustration that airport authorities, airlines, and air traveling passengers have with our airport expansion program. If we are going to accommodate the more than 1 billion passengers to use the U.S. airways in the next 5 to 10 years, then we have to do a better job of moving airport projects along to enhance and expand capacity. But it is misleading to say that environmental issues alone are the factors causing 10- to 15-year delays in building runways. The FAA reviewed the runway construction process, studied a number of major construction projects which have been described as taking 10 to 15 years to complete, and found generally that the Federal environmental impact process took 3 to 4 years. Now, that certainly is in the view of many people too long, but it is not 15 years. The major cause when we look at the facts more closely as reported by FAA, the major cause of delay is the time needed to complete the local political process mandated by State law and local ordinance. Under our system, as distinguished from many other places and most other countries in the world, it is not the Federal Government that decides to build an airport, except in the case of Dulles or Reagan National Airport, which are the only two owned by the Federal Government. It is the local government that makes that decision. Once they have, the Federal process comes into play. I think that we should speed up the environmental process by doing a great deal of the work concurrently, and coordinate State and Federal approvals; but each proposal has to be evaluated on its own and on itself. We have to be careful that we are only streamlining environmental processes, not superseding them. There are many positive provisions in this bill that will move the process along without undermining the National Environmental Policy Act. There is a procedure for DOT to take the lead in a cooperative initiative where all the State and Federal agencies that have environmental responsibilities agree to deadlines, agree to coordinate their review, and to do those reviews concurrently rather than sequentially. That would be a very big improvement on the existing process. I think that is a strong and constructive initiative that we have brought forward. There is also more flexibility in this legislation to address local community concerns by allowing restrictions on use of new runways, use of Federal airport funds for environmental mitigation, and allow FAA to accept money from airports to hire additional staff to process the environmental reviews more expeditiously. I think that is constructive. If these reasonable, responsible, thoughtfully constructed steps are followed, the environmental process will not be preempted. It will be speeded up, and the environmental will not take a bad rap in the name of efficiency or expeditious movement of airport construction process. On the whole we have a good bill, a reasonable one that properly managed will move our airport expansion needs ahead in a responsible manner. I think it will go a long way toward accelerating the environmental process without sacrificing environmental processes. I commend the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for the extensive cooperation that we have had on this legislation, and the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), for his thoughtful consideration of the views that we have offered on our side; and I also commend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) for his dedicated work over many hours on this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to be an accorded an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I listened attentively to the gentleman from Mississippi, who is a very congenial, a very thoughtful gentleman with whom I had extensive discussions a year ago about this bill prior to his introduction of the legislation. I pointed out to him my reservations then. I pointed out the concerns about reimbursement to airports for towers built under conditions where the tower did not comply with FAA cost-benefit requirements. I said, ``I am fully willing to support the forward-looking part of this bill, because I think we ought to do this, but I can't have a reachback provision. It is just not good national policy.'' And this is not partisan, I say to the gentleman. This is a matter of principle. Is it a penalty for an airport authority to ask that authority to live up to an agreement they signed, eyes wide open? Is it likewise fair to other airports who complied with the law, who met the benefit-cost analysis, who complied with all the provisions, some of which are excluded from these reimbursement airports under this language, complied with all the provisions of law, to come back and say to a select group of airports, no, you can be reimbursed without having to comply with the full range of Federal law and without having to meet the cost-benefit analysis? In fact, there are at least five of these airports that under no stretch of the imagination can meet the benefit- cost analysis. Furthermore, the argument has been made time and again, these are entitlement funds for these airports. Well, they did not exist prior to AIR-21 as entitlement for each airport. When I was chair of the Subcommittee on Aviation in 1990 and we crafted the passenger facility charge, I insisted that for the major airports that would impose a PFC, half of their entitlement dollar would go into a special fund dedicated for small airports, for airports at the end of the spokes in the hub and spoke aviation system. Those dollars substantially improved the ability of small airports to build runways, taxiways, lighting, safety enhancements, security enhancements. Then we came to the AIR-21 legislation and said, ``Let's take it a step further. Let's assure there is an entitlement.'' That entitlement money, available to small airports, is not money the airport collected or generated in any way. These are dollars from the Airport Improvement Program derived from the Aviation Trust Fund, which is derived from the ticket tax and from a host of other taxes, on aviation fuel, et cetera, that go into the Airport Trust Fund. Well, that is a national program. Taxes are imposed on all aviation users. These are not revenues generated by that airport to which they have a claim. These are funds that are distributed under a formula the Congress has written that the FAA carries out and, therefore, projects and expenses that are approved under FAA rules, guidelines, that are derived from Federal law. If we change that, then you have two classes of small airports: One that got an entitlement and that followed by the rules, another one that gets reimbursed for not complying with the law and the rules. The law places limits on the use of entitlement funds by each airport. Those entitlement funds can be used only for projects that are eligible under the law. This is all about playing by the rules. It does not rub my heart to pain that an airport said, goodness, with our eyes wide open we signed this agreement. We wanted this tower so badly that we were willing to build the tower, and you, FAA, will operate that tower, but now come a few years later, now reimburse us for that expenditure. That is just wrong. That is just simply wrong. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Mississippi went out in front of his home and paved a section of street and improved that street and then went to the city council in his hometown and said, ``Look what an improvement I made. It is safer. No one is going to have an accident. Reimburse me for my cost,'' they would not give him a dime. I do not think the gentleman would do that. He would not ask them to do that. But that is the analogy to what is being proposed in this legislation. In short, this is a national program to fund airport development in the national interest. It is not designed to provide free capital to airports to use as they see fit; rather, to comply with a body of rules under which everybody plays. In the future we have got a good program, but reaching back is a bad idea.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, it will be on a high principle that will affect all of future transportation issues within the purview of this Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it is fair because, in the first place, that tower cannot qualify for the tower program. It did not meet the benefit-cost analysis. The airport authority knew it, and said, we will build the tower, and you operate it, Federal FAA; and that is what is at issue. For the future, going forward, I think the underlying bill is appropriate, and I told the gentleman that a year ago.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is what the underlying bill does, and for the future, but not for the past.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, let us throw out all of the other extraneous matters. These airport authorities signed an agreement with the FAA. This is not about Federal dollars, local dollars, who is in charge or whatever. They signed an agreement that said they will build the tower; the FAA will operate that tower. They entered into it, full well knowing that they had to pay that cost. Now, we are about to give them a windfall benefit. That is not right, and the gentleman knows that.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. And I think that happened here, as the gentleman full well knows.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the distinguished chairman if he believes in the sanctity of contracts. When one signs an agreement, when one signs a contract, does one live up to it?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, they entered into an agreement fully knowing what that entailed; and if the gentleman from Mississippi and I enter into an agreement for me to buy his car, and I come back and say, gee whiz, I paid too high a price for that car; can the gentleman cut it back? The gentleman would say, wait a minute, you agreed to that price. Pay me the price.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I listened again with great attention to the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, who made a very compassionate, or passionate, argument, compassionate for those 20 airports who are going to be windfall beneficiaries. This idea that airports that built the contract towers are rewarded for thinking ahead by this amendment is just not right. I heard another appeal to common sense, but is it common sense to vitiate common law? Common law says you made an agreement, which is a contract. Live by it. That is all we are saying. They built the tower. They received an enormous benefit from the FAA to the tune of an average $350,000 a year in air traffic control services provided by the FAA at that tower. Other airports did not take a flying leap and build a tower and then hope that someday in the future, some future Congress would come back and benefit them. In addition, while these towers may have been indeed built for safety purposes, they were all built with the very clear purpose of economic benefits for the communities. They need not be double-imbursed by having the ability to be compensated for something they did at a time when they knew they would not be compensated for it. These are scarce dollars, AIP dollars, very limited amounts of money. They have to be very carefully managed. We criticize the FAA when they badly manage those dollars, and we ought not to engage in further mismanagement on this House floor by allowing the reach-back provision to cover the cost of towers previously built under terms and conditions that, in many cases, do not comply with the benefit-cost analysis required by FAA rules of contract towers. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) has already said the 26 airports to be covered by this provision have already requested funds totaling in excess of $252 million in Federal funding for future AIP- eligible projects under the NIPIAS. They have requested $6.3 million for security projects, access control, fencing, vehicles, infrared cameras, closed circuit monitors, blast analyses, berm construction, safety enhancements for lighting, deicing, snow removal and weather reporting, and capacity projects such as runway extensions, taxiways, apron extensions, cargo and general aviation taxiways. These airports get $150,000 a year under the AIR-21 legislation we passed just 2 years ago, and I supported initiating the idea of special funding for smaller airports in our era of hub-and-spoke aviation systems. In the contract to our program, and remember, that was started in the aftermath of the air traffic controller strike in 1981 when there was a need to increase safety in the system, the contract tower program provides for air traffic control services only. Tower construction is outside the scope of the program for those who participate who did not have approval from the FAA. Once they are accepted into the contract tower program, those airports signed a contract airport traffic control tower operating agreement that says specifically, ``In consideration of air traffic control service being provided to the airport sponsored by the government, the airport sponsor agrees to the following terms and conditions at no cost to the government. The airport sponsor shall provide an air traffic control tower structure meeting all applicable State and local standards.'' How can it be more clear than that? They signed an agreement, eyes wide open, knowing full well that they had to meet this cost. Now they are going to come back and say, oh, we did not mean that. We throw contract law right out the window. We throw agreements right out the window. I am offended by this idea that we ought to scatter these dollars around and just make whole those airports who signed an agreement, knew what they were getting into, who received significant benefits since they built those towers. Mr. Chairman, $350,000 a year on average for air traffic control services, and now we want to double benefit them. Furthermore, the bill before us does not require the airport to use the reimbursement fund to fund AIP-eligible projects; it would be somewhat tolerable if we were limited in that respect, but only requires the airport to show that it complied with Davis-Bacon, Small Business and Veterans Preference, but not the other statutory requirements, the National Environmental Policy Act, for example. Well, I just do not understand how it can be considered to be a burden and a penalty to ask an airport to live up to the terms of an agreement it entered into voluntarily, an agreement through which it got the Federal funding for the cost of operating the tower. If this bill should pass with this provision in it, I will be watching very carefully in the future to see how many other circumstances there will be, reach-back provisions, and let us exonerate this interest from that requirement. I will be very interested to see if the gentleman from Mississippi is going to be the first one to step up to the plate and offer additional funding in the transportation appropriations bill to cover additional costs that are going to be incurred by these small airports in the future. They are going to need additional money. They are going to soak up this $30 million to pay for something they already built; and then they are going to come back and say, but we are out-of-pocket and we need money for security and safety and capacity enhancements. Where is that money going to come from? Well, I hope it does not come out of the AIP program or the F&E account or the operational account or any other accounts, because they are all limited; and that is the point. We do not have infinite dollars in the aviation trust fund. Mr. Chairman, let me repeat. These entitlement dollars come from the aviation trust fund contributed by all users. They are not coming from a passenger facility charge that the airport has imposed. If they wanted to impose a passenger facility charge, that is their dollars; they can use it as they see fit. I supported it. I initiated that legislation in 1990. This is different. These are different funds. There are substantial economic benefits that flow to a city from an airport with a control tower. Safety is one of them, but significant economic benefits. We are just coming here and saying, although you did not qualify, although you did not meet the eligibility requirements, we are still going to reimburse you for having gone ahead and, with your eyes wide open, signed an agreement that you would build this tower at your expense for the FAA to operate that tower. Now, there could be an argument, although I have not heard it yet from our chairman, that in the 1996 legislation we provided funding for reimbursement of non-AIP-eligible projects. However, in the 1996 bill, that was prospective, not retroactive. That is the difference, and that is the consistency with Federal law that I was expecting and arguing for in this legislation. We do not have that consistency. And the chairman is going to have a hard time, Mr. Chairman, reconciling this action with any future FAA legislation that wants to deviate from historic precedent and practice. The basic underlying bill is prospective, and that is appropriate. What is not appropriate is to compensate airports for something that they agreed to build, for costs they agreed to incur, and in return for which they have received significant benefits. Mr. Chairman, this amendment should be passed. We should delete this provision of the bill.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is; I can see that. That is why I wanted to talk with the gentleman.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I listened with great interest to the remarks of the chairman of the Committee on Rules and the remarks of the gentleman from Mississippi. Were it not for the reimbursement provision, I would say, this bill would not be on the Union Calendar. We would have disposed of it on the suspension calendar. We could have even brought it on unanimous consent. But because of an egregious provision that the Law and Order Caucus, ordinarily on the other side of the aisle, would not support, we have to take this up in the current procedure, and, that is, the reimbursement provision. It is really akin to the painter who comes up to your front door, paints the door and says, Look what a great job I did. It was in such bad shape. It was a terrible-looking front door. Now it looks wonderful. Pay me. There was no contract. There was no agreement. Every one of the 20 or 21 airports that will be windfall beneficiaries of this provision in the bill knew what they were getting into, I say to the gentleman. We discussed this when the gentleman first proposed this before he even introduced his bill a year ago. I am for the purposes of your legislation except for the reimbursement. They signed a contract with the FAA. They knew what they were getting into. They knew they had to build a tower in order for the FAA to operate that tower. It is not right to come back and say, Oh, gosh, why don't you reimburse us for being good guys and building this tower even though we knew it was our obligation, even though we knew we had to pay for it. What this amendment is going to allow is these airports to reach out into the future, into the entitlement that we provided for small airports in AIR-21, and I was a proponent of it, to give small airports an entitlement. Over many years we had expanded the funding available for small airports going back to the passenger facility charge of 1990 where large airports had to yield half of their entitlement funds, 50 cents, their entitlement for every dollar of PFC that then went into a small airport development fund, to increase the amount of money going out to upgrade airports at the end of the spokes in the hub-and-spokes system of aviation. That amounted to an $800 million set-aside for small airports every year from 1990 forward. In addition to that, I said, Fine. We ought to have an entitlement now for small airports because some of them are not getting that money. That is $150,000 a year. Those airports, at $1.1 million average, will soak up 7 future years of their entitlement money. Then what is going to happen, those airports are going to come back to their Members of Congress and say, Goodness, we've run out of money. Can you help us get more funds? Are we supposed to then bail them out twice? They agreed to this provision. The basic bill is prospective. It says, in the future we will fund these kinds of projects on a request basis. But we should not go back in time and pay for something that an airport agreed to do on their own. The airport program has limited dollars, limited funding. It is a cooperative program. The Federal Government, State and local each has to do their part. The part of the small airports and the airport authority was to get an agreement. If they could not comply, if they could not meet the benefit-cost standard, then they had to go and build the tower themselves and the FAA comes in and operates that tower. They are not shouldering the whole responsibility themselves. The Federal Government, the FAA, is paying for the operation of that tower and the air traffic controllers. Absent the reimbursement provision, which is simply a windfall benefit, unjustified, the rest of the bill is good, is needed, will serve security and safety enhancement and capacity needs in the future. But we ought to defeat that provision of the bill. Under any other circumstance, I cannot imagine any other Member of this body supporting something like that. We do not do it in the Corps of Engineers, we do not do it in the Federal highway program, and we ought not to be doing it in the small airport program.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for raising this issue. In general it is a standing principle that any AIP funds, any project that is AIP funded, must conform to the Federal rules and regulations, which include the public-hearing process. Since this is a block grant program, I think we would have to review the conditions under which Pennsylvania manages that program and may want to amend the requirements in next year's reauthorization of FAA programs to ensure that States in their block grant program comply with the public notification issue that the gentleman has raised here. I fully sympathize with the gentleman's position.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.