LEXIS-NEXIS® Congressional Universe-Document

LEXIS-NEXIS® Congressional

March 23, 1999, Tuesday

SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 1079 words

HEADLINE: TESTIMONY March 23, 1999 RICHARD SHELBY SENATOR SENATE APPROPRIATIONS TRANSPORTATION FISCAL 2000 TRANSPORTATION APPROPRIATIONS

BODY:
Statement of Senator Richard Shelby Chairman, Subcommittee on Transportation Appropriations Hearing on FY 2000 Federal Aviation Administration Budget Request March 23, 1999, 2:00 pm, SD-124 Today, we have FAA Administrator Jane Harvey here to discuss the Administration's FE 2000 budget request for the Federal Aviation Administration and other aviation issues. I want to dig into the budget request, reauthorization proposals, and the status of some of the FAA's programs in today's hearing, so I will keep my remarks brief in order that we might get to a dialogue with the Administrator on these topics and other issues that my colleagues wish to discuss. Before getting to that, however, I wanted to conduct a brief review of the FAA budget over the past several years in order to place the current budget request and the discussion over reauthorization in perspective, and to touch upon a few of the broad budget issues to be contemplated in this year's authorization process. There has been a great deal of discussion during the first three months of the "Year of Aviation" about the "looming crisis" at the FAA and with the pending "grid lock" in the skies due to insufficient FAA funding. This panicked cry is not new - it has been a common refrain over the past 15 years. It seems to increase in volume every time the Administration proposes a new capital plan or reauthorization proposal, or every time Congress undertakes the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration's programs. But the crisis always seems to recede the closer we look at it, or the closer we get to the projected "grid lock" deadline. Does that mean that the vast number of studies, conferences and think-tanks that have weighed in on this topic are off base - no. Clearly, air traffic has increased, and capacity management challenges have also increased, but the airlines', the airports', and the FAA's ability to grow capacity and more efficiently manage traffic loads has also increased. The system works and will continue to evolve as the nature of the traffic demands grow and change. Congress, once again, needs to make sure that we don't respond to projections of dynamic growth in the industry with static capacity growth models. I have directed my staff for the two years that I have been Chairman of this subcommittee to focus our aviation ingestions in three area: on increasing the investment in airport infrastructure, on investing in technology that will allow airports and the airlines to be more efficient, and on increasing the efficiency of the air traffic control system and personnel. I think we are making good progress on the first two fronts and I'm hopeful that the Administrator will be able to tell us how the new controllers' agreement will make the air traffic control system more efficient. Although it is often said in the halls of the FAA or in outside study groups that the FAA is in a crisis because the agency lacks a reliable revenue stream, the facts simply don't bear that out - 99.8 percent of the FAA's budget over the past five years has been appropriated and approved by Congress. Over the past three years, FAA's appropriation has grown by 17.6 percent. By comparison, over the same time frame, FDA's funding grew 12.1 percent, NASA's budget went down 1.6 percent, and the budget for Defense declined by 1.7 percent. Clearly, FAA Has fared better than most in the budget process. It's also important to note that FAA's budget growth has come in an environment where their workload has only been growing between 1 and 3 percent per year. Keep in mind, the FAA moves airplanes, not passengers. While the budget has grown at a faster rate than the FAA's workload, productivity gains and cost saving measures have been largely non-existent at the FAA. We need to do better. The budget request for the FAA proposes almost a 6 percent growth over last year's appropriation. On top of the last three years growth, FAA's budget will have grown by over 25 percent over four years. Keep in mind that history shows that FAA gets virtually all of its budget request. In short, this request is not lean, particularly when compared to other agencies in the Federal Government, or even within the Department of Transportation - or compared to the agency's workload growth or the virtual absence of any meaningful cost savings. In short, this budget request is generous. So, the question shouldn't be whether we are spending enough on the FAA, the question should be whether it will be spent wisely. I would submit that some of the refocusing that the Administrator has done with the Facilities and Equipment budget -emphasizing the Free Flight Phase I initiative, for example -- gives me greater confidence that things are being done better. However, some of the problems with the Agency's two largest procurements, STARS and BAAS, lead me to believe that the agency hasn't turned the comer yet. Clearly, there is a critical need for continued, and perhaps increased oversight, from within the FAA, and from organizations like the Department of Transportation Inspector General, the General Accounting Office, and the Congress. Finally, I'm concerned about the seemingly growing popularity of "fire walling" parts of the budget in order to insulate certain portions of the budget from having to compete with other Federal spending. The argument that aviation should follow the example of highways and transit should concern all of us -- there are hundreds of trust funds and even more "special funds" which can make a similar case for special budgetary treatment. Assuming we adhere to the budget caps, if the recently introduced House FAA reauthorization bill were to be reenacted, the FAA's budget would grow by 50 percent and be "fire walled" like Highways and Transit, there wouldn't be any room in the Transportation Appropriations bill for the Coast Guard, Amtrak, the Office of the Secretary, the Federal Railroad Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Research and Special Programs Administration, or the non-fire walled portion of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The FAA has thrived in the regular budget and appropriations process. FAA expenditures continue to exceed the taxes paid into the aviation trust fund. Our focus this year should be how to do thing better, not how to insulate the FAA from oversight or from having to compete with other budget priorities.

LOAD-DATE: April 5, 1999