LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic Universe-Document

LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic

View Related Topics

June 16, 1999, Wednesday 3 STAR EDITION

SECTION: A; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 448 words

HEADLINE: Airport spending would take off under bill

SOURCE: Houston Chronicle News Services

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
WASHINGTON - Defying a veto threat and congressional budget writers, the House on Tuesday passed legislation allowing a hefty boost in airport spending by guaranteeing that all airport user taxes go to airport improvements.

The Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill, passed 316-110, directs $ 56 billion over five years to operate the FAA and improve airport and air traffic control facilities.

It seeks to bolster competition to smaller market airports, eventually eliminates takeoff and landing restrictions at New York and Chicago airports, and doubles to $ 6 per passenger what an airport can charge for local projects. The bill, which has yet to be taken up by the Senate, is the handiwork of Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., a fierce advocate of infrastructure spending.

Shuster dangled the promise of billions of dollars of increased funds for airport construction and remodeling projects in members' districts to win bipartisan support for his plan. But Senate leaders have expressed opposition to his approach to airport spending, and President Clinton has threatened a veto.

Shuster came up with an extra $ 14 billion in the aviation bill with language stating that Congress can no longer use funds from the Aviation Trust Fund for non-aviation purposes. The trust fund, which takes in about $ 10 billion a year in airport user taxes, goes for airport projects but also helps general budget programs and boosts the budget surplus.

"It is morally wrong to take aviation ticket taxes and use those ticket taxes for a general tax cut," he said.

Also Tuesday, the Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would limit lawsuits arising from year 2000 computer failures. But the 62-37 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override Clinton's promised veto. That means further negotiations with the White House will be needed for the measure to become law, as is considered likely.

The bill would place a ceiling of $ 250,000 on the punitive damages that could be assessed against companies with fewer than 50 employees, and would give all companies 90 days to solve year 2000 computer problems before they could be held liable.

Most important for the large and wealthy computer companies, the legislation specifies that all the companies responsible for a failure would share the legal liability and that no company could be assessed damages greater than its proportional responsibility for a breakdown.

What is called the Y2K problem results from the reliance of some computers on programs that use only the last two digits of years. Those that are not properly updated could misinterpret the year 2000 as 1900.

LOAD-DATE: June 29, 1999