Press Release, August 1999
AReCO |
NEWS RELEASE |
ALLIANCE OF RESIDENTS CONCERNING O'HARE, INC.
Contact person:
Jack Saporito, AReCO & US-CAW (847) 506-0670
CHICAGO, IL (August 12, 2024)—Like a thief in the night, one of the aviation industry’s best patrons, Congressman Bud Shuster (R-PA) introduced and passed controversial legislation through the US House that will massively increase flights into our nation’s airports. Apparently, this maneuver could not have been accomplished without another major supporter of the industry, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the US Senate.
The legislation’s language, (Aviation Investment and Reform Act - S1467) that favors the aviation industry’s interests, was inserted into a bill that was designed to keep the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operating for the next 60 days. The legislation was introduced and passed in the late hours of the evening of August 5, with just 15 minutes left in the session before Congress adjourned for summer recess. The FAA has been running on extensions since earlier this year when similar legislation failed because the controversial aviation bills were killed.
Schuster introduced this short-sighted transportation legislation that was partially drafted by the industry to protect itself against competition from high-speed rail and new developments in electronic media that will eventually cut into its profits. The industry and government have also acknowledged serious environmental, public health and other quality of life problems that are just becoming a major focus. Aviation owns a monopoly over other forms of transportation such as high-speed rail in the United States.
The aviation industry is heavily subsidized directly and indirectly by American tax dollars. Instead of looking for long term solutions to the transportation crisis, a few legislators sold out to the aviation industry at the expense of the health and welfare of millions of Americans and they did it covertly, in an effort to hide it from the American public.
This self serving legislation was passed, even though it is well known that serious and deadly airport and aircraft air-water-noise pollution affects the health of millions of people living and working around airports and under aircraft flight paths. Also, according to the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, aircraft emissions contribute more than half the global warming potential than that contributed by road transport vehicles. This seems to go against common sense, since there are only thousands of aircraft vs. millions of ground vehicles. But, considering the extraordinary amounts of fuel expended, causing great amounts of destructive emissions, emitted directly in the upper atmosphere this does make a lot of sense. Tacking the frightful language of HR 1000 onto the FAA extension bill gave the aviation industry a way of getting its legislation through, when it appeared that strong opposition was being mounted against its companion bill in the Senate S. 82, that was also introduced by Senator McCain.
Among other bad proposals in the House legislation:
1. Doubling, and at some
airports, tripling airport expansion funding
2. Removal of slot restrictions at High-Density Ruled airports
3. Granting the federal government authority to over-ride state law, when it
comes to the state banning construction of new runways.
One of the problems is that the proposed massive growth in aviation will make the already intolerable noise, pollution, public health and other quality of life issues unbearable for the millions of residents who are even now subjected to it on a daily and nightly basis. Effectively, this chicanery knowingly has left the FAA Airport Improvement Program without authorization or funding, it will be shut down Saturday and will force the Senate to tackle the aviation issue when it returns back from break in September.
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United States Citizens Aviation Watch Association (US-CAWA) is an association
made up of municipalities and civic and grassroots organizations concerned about
the health and welfare of residents. US-CAWA represents over 1 million residents
with the goal of protecting the public and the environment. It is based in the
Chicago area.
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