A bipartisan group of senators with jurisdiction over aviation legislation sent a letter late Tuesday to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., urging him to include a one-year extension of the aviation excise tax in the FY97 omnibus appropriations legislation.
The letter, which also was sent to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., was written by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and signed by Senate Commerce Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and ranking member Wendell Ford, D-Ky. The 10 percent ticket tax, which provides the FAA with most of its funding, is set to expire again on Dec. 31, when Congress will be out of session and likely will not be able to reinstate the tax again until sometime in the spring at the earliest. "It is unlikely that any action will be possible in the next Congress to restore the excise taxes until late in the year at best," the senators wrote.
Without the tax, the trust fund loses an estimated $500 million a month. McCain, although he is the leading proponent of a plan to replace the ticket tax with a new system of user fees, signed the letter, conceding it would be unfair to deplete the aviation agency's funding while Congress is out of session.
"Funding the FAA and preserving the aviation trust fund is a matter of bipartisan concern. It is imperative that the Congress act now to prevent a second year of depleting the trust fund, and we urge you to include provisions in the continuing resolution that would extend the aviation excise taxes through fiscal year 1997," the letter said.
Democratic aides Tuesday suggested that the ticket tax extension could be used as an offset for the Democrats' proposed $3.2 billion increase in education funding, instead of using spectrum auction to pay for it. Meawhile, House and Senate negotiators continued pre-conference negotiations Tuesday on FAA reform legislation to reauthorize the airport grants program for one year.
One major difference between the two bills is that the House version would privatize the FAA while the Senate bill would not.
Ford, who has expressed serious reservations about privatization in the past, reiterated his position Tuesday, saying, "Privatization in my opinion won't fly." However, he said he would consider a pilot program to privatize "one or two airports," although, he quipped, "I don't want any in Kentucky."
The members are working under a Sept. 30 deadline by which to pass a reauthorization measure for the Airport Improvement Program, which must get congressional approval before that time or else airports cannot get federal grants from the FAA to pay for infrastructure needs.
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