NBAA, AOPA Point To Call For "Direct User Charges" By 2011

On Thursday, President Barack Obama submitted the first proposed budget under his administration, and it contained some rotten news for general aviation: language calling for user fees to begin in 2011.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the proposal February 26... and while there is not much detail, the document makes it clear that the administration wants to replace some of the aviation excise taxes with "direct user charges."

"It is often said the devil is in the details, but even with only a few details, there is much about which we are concerned," said Craig L. Fuller, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. "We have been working constructively with the Obama administration and Congress about moving forward with air traffic control modernization and airport development. However, the warning light went on with the budget briefing documents and the plan for imposing billions in user fees on the aviation community."

Among those few details is language that "proposes repealing some aviation excise taxes and replacing these taxes with direct user charges," according to AOPA. Those "user charges" -- user fees by a somewhat different name -- would total some $7 billion in 2011, or about half of the FAA's total budget.

The news also came as an unwelcome surprise to Ed Bolen, president of the National Business Aviation Association.

"Although we commend the Obama Administration for its commitment to modernizing the nation's aviation system and expanding capacity, we are very troubled by the budget outline issued by the White House today, because its appears to leave the door open to consideration of user fees for funding the Federal Aviation Administration," he said. "We continue to believe that operational user fees have no place in a funding plan for the FAA, and we will remain unified with the rest of the general aviation community in opposing them in favor of building on the proven, efficient fuel tax for general aviation to help support modernization."

AOPA's Fuller added "We don’t know what kind of user charges the Obama administration would propose to implement, but the previous administration wanted to raise about $7 billion through charges to use the air traffic control system."

FMI: Read The Budget (.pdf, User Fee Language Begins On Page 129), www.aopa.org, www.nbaa.org