Sat, Jan 22, 2011
President Told It's A Bad Idea By Members On Both Sides Of The
Aisle
The NBAA welcomed a bipartisan letter signed by 116 members of
the U.S. House of Representatives urging President Obama to keep
user fees out of the administration's fiscal year 2012 budget.
Rep. Jerry Costello (D-12-IL), who serves as Ranking Member of
the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Aviation
Subcommittee, and who issued an earlier statement urging the
administration to avoid user fees in the budget plan, joined with
Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tom Petri (R-6-WI) in the new
call to the White House to exclude user fees from its next fiscal
year budget proposal.
The bipartisan letter states that aviation user fees "would have
a detrimental impact on general aviation and the flying public. We
support the current system of aviation excise taxes, which has
proven to be a stable and efficient source of funding."
NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen applauded the action of Petri,
Costello and their fellow co-signers to the letter. "We thank the
Congressional leaders who took this action early in the year to
reinforce a clear message of opposition to user fees, and welcome
their unwavering support on this issue of critical importance to
the entire general aviation community," he said in a statement
Friday.
NBAA and the rest of the general aviation community have long
been unified in advocating for the industry to help fund the
Federal Aviation Administration and aviation system modernization
through proven, efficient fuel taxes instead of untried and
burdensome user fees. Bolen noted that user fees would require a
large bureaucracy to manage, and would impose a burden on the many
small and mid-size businesses that rely on an airplane to
succeed.
He added that NBAA would continue to support aviation system
modernization without user fees for general aviation, and that
continued grassroots mobilization by the Association's Members
would be key to ensuring that the industry's position on the issue
is well understood by Washington policymakers.
Costello and Petri organized a similar letter initiative in
2009, which was also met with strong, bipartisan support.
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