Lott Says Aviation Modernization Should Be Funded With Flight Surcharge

As Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee's Aviation Subcommittee, I have worked with Senator Rockefeller to develop the Aviation Investment and Modernization Act of 2007, which the Commerce Committee reported out favorably on May 16. Now it is time for the finance Committee to act on the financing title of this bill. The financing title will determine how the Federal Aviation Administration will be funded for the next several years.

First of all, I would like to thank FAA Administrator Blakey for all her hard work over the last five years as Administrator -- this may well be her last appearance at a Congressional hearing as her terra expires in September. She should be commended for highlighting the importance of modernizing our air traffic control system and the need for a proper financing system to pay for it. She could easily have sent up a plain vanilla reauthorization bill to Congress and served out her last few months in relative quite. Instead she sent up a proposal that was quite radical, that challenged many sacred cows, and has sparked a very healthy debate here in Congress on how we are going to pay for the Nation's future aviation system. I want to thank her for her service in a very difficult job, probably the most difficult job in the Department of Transportation, and a job where you get a lot of blame, lots of second guessing, and not many thanks. But 1 think she should be judged on the results, the truth is That she has presided over (the safest live years for aviation in the history of the our country.

I've enjoyed working in aviation for most of my career. In 2000, I worked onthe FAA Reauthorization with Bud Sinister. In 2000, I had the pleasure of working with Senators McCain, Hollings, and Rockefeller. Even back then, Congress recognized the looming crisis and created the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) to coordinate the modernization effort. I hope this bill helps us take the quantum leap this time, way beyond what we've been willing to do before.

In this year's bill we have the unique opportunity to accelerate the modernization of our air traffic control system. Aviation is far too critical to American passengers and businesses for us to be satisfied with an inefficient and aging national system. We have tremendous demand for more capacity, and modernization is essential for future economic growth.

The problem is we have been talking about modernization and there has been lots of planning and frankly there hasn't been enough action. The most recent forecasts show that unless we take some very aggressive actions soon, we may face serious gridlock in the sky by 2015. Just like we shouldn't wait for a road to become fully congested before adding more lanes, we can't wait for chaos in the air before taking action.

The rase of air traffic control is complicated by the fact that the experts tell us that meeting future capacity isn't as simple as just adding another lane. The current system isn't scalable -- we need a totally new system to replace the existing one. We don't just need another highway lane -- we need a whole new highway or perhaps the better analogy is that we needto create an Interstate Highway program for aviation. The Interstate Highway program created a national interstate system that replaced the old U.S. route system that primarily consisted of two lane roads that where dangerous and inefficient. It is often referred to as the largest public works project undertaken in the United States, well its time to do the same for aviation.

The problem, of course, is that we don't have much time. That is why we are moving out aggressively on the legislative schedule to make sure we get this done before current law expires.

A further problem is that we need to find the money to modernize the system. We do this in the Commerce bill by creating a S25 dollar per flight surcharge on commercial aviation and "high end" general aviation. This surcharge will generate about $400 million per year and would be exclusively dedicated to the modernising the air traffic control system over the next 4 years.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to continuing my work on this important piece of legislation and hope we can finish it by the end of September when the current financing for the FAA expires.