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81–310 PDF 2002

AIR TRANSPORTATION—CUSTOMER PROBLEMS

AND SOLUTIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 31, 2001

Serial No. 107–85

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL RESOURCES AND REGULATORY

AFFAIRS

DOUG OSE, California, Chairman

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, OHIO

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

——— ———

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

DAN SKOPEC, Staff Director

BARBARA F. KAHLOW, Deputy Staff Director

REGINA MCALLISTER, Clerk

ELIZABETH MUNDINGER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 31, 2001 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

McLean, Donna, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Budget and Programs and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Transportation; Jane

Garvey, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, Department

of Transportation; Ed Merlis, senior vice president, legislative and

international affairs, Air Transport Association of America, Inc.; Todd

Hauptli, senior vice president, legislative affairs, American Association

of Airport Executives; Henry Ogrodzinski, president and chief executive

officer, National Association of State Aviation Officials; David Krietor,

aviation director, Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport; and Sue Sandahl, council member at-large, Richfield City council, Minnesota ............................. 13

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Garvey, Jane, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation:

Information concerning co-location .......................................................... 100

Information concerning FAA Order 1050.1E .......................................... 98

Information concerning proposed runways ............................................. 105

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 25

Hauptli, Todd, senior vice president, legislative affairs, American Association of Airport Executives, prepared statement of ..................................... 56

Krietor, David, aviation director, Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 80

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 118

McLean, Donna, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Budget and Programs and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Transportation:

Information concerning Council on Environmental Quality .................. 90

Information concerning settlements ........................................................ 95

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 16

Merlis, Ed, senior vice president, legislative and international affairs,

Air Transport Association of America, Inc., prepared statement of ......... 39

Ogrodzinski, Henry, president and chief executive officer, National Association of State Aviation Officials, prepared statement of ........................ 75

Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 4

Otter, Hon. C.L. ‘‘Butch’’, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Idaho, prepared statement of ................................................................... 119

Sandahl, Sue, council member at-large, Richfield City council, Minnesota,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 86

(1)

AIR TRANSPORTATION—CUSTOMER

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

TUESDAY, JULY 31, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Ose (chairman of

the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Ose, Otter, Duncan, Tierney, Mink, and

Kucinich.

Staff present: Dan Skopec, staff director; Barbara Kahlow, deputy staff director; Jonathan Tolman, professional staff member; Regina McAllister, clerk; Elizabeth Mundinger, minority counsel; and

Earley Green, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. OSE. Good afternoon. I call this meeting to order of the Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee. Good afternoon. The way we are going to proceed, I’m going

to make an opening statement and then Mr. Duncan is going to

make an opening statement. I forewarn you we are on the verge

of having a vote on a rule on the House floor. We are monitoring

that. When we get to that, we’ll recess to go over and vote and then

come back.

The summer is a busy travel time. Many Americans travel by

air. Unfortunately, too many have experienced frustration with air

travel, particularly delays. Some have also experienced a variety of

other problems, such as not receiving information about the lowest

available airfare, being bumped from an overbooked flight, having

the airlines lose their baggage, having insufficient overhead bin

space for their carry-ons, and suffering in cramped leg room. Today’s hearing will examine possible solutions to remedy at least

some of these problems.

In 1978, Congress changed the economic regulation of the airline

industry in the Airline Deregulation Act. Since then, fares have

fallen, more cities have more air service, and fatalities in the air

have decreased. However, the bad news is that there are still big

problems, especially as it relates to delays. In 2000, one in four

flights were late, diverted or canceled. The question is, what can

be done now to prevent that from reoccurring. The June 25, 2001

edition of Fortune magazine included an article entitled, ‘‘Air Travel—How to Fix the Air-Traffic Mess, Deregulation Isn’t the ProbVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Sep 16, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81310.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lem. It’s the Answer.’’ Today’s witnesses will be asked if regulatory

streamlining is an answer.

The Department of Transportation is responsible for addressing

consumer airline problems. Last month in response to consumer

frustration and possible new legislation, the Air Transport Association, representing 14 major airlines, voluntarily committed to improve customer service, such as notifying passengers of known

delays, cancellations and diversions and lowest available air fares.

I look forward to a status report on that today.

Even if customer service improves, there is a growing gap between the demand for air transportation and capacity to meet that

demand. Some believe that air transportation problems can be best

addressed by increased airport capacity—greater use of underutilized airports, new runways, new airports and conversion of some

military airfields to civilian use—and, second, air traffic control

modernization. Denver’s airport is the only new major hub airport

in the last 25 years. Also, while passenger ridership increased more

than 40 percent during the last 10 years, only six runways were

added at the 31 large hub primary airports. Another 18 runways

are planned to be opened in the next 10 years at the 31 hub airports.

In 2000, Congress required DOT to study Federal environmental

requirements related to air improvement projects. In May 2001,

DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration issued the required report.

FAA found that the 31 hub airports account for 70 percent of U.S.

air passengers and the top 25 of these airports account for 86 percent of all severe air traffic delays. FAA estimated an average 10-

year planning cycle for new commercial runways; that is, from time

of active planning to the start of construction. From first planning

to actual completion takes even longer. In many cases the process

took 15 to 20 years. Some took more than 20 years. One major airport has a runway that has been on the drawing board for 30

years. These delays are the result of a review and approval process

that is complicated, conflicting, duplicative and ill-defined.

This lengthy process is due to the fact that there are approximately 40 Federal laws, Executive orders and regulations governing runway and airport construction. Principal among these is the

National Environmental Policy Act. Besides Transportation’s FAA,

there are numerous Federal agencies involved in these processes.

In addition to the Federal agencies and requirements, there are

State and local agencies and processes, some of which are duplicative of the Federal process. The most far reaching State review is

the California Environmental Quality Act. Substantial airport development projects in California require a State environmental impact report in addition to a Federal environmental impact statement under NEPA.

The principal air transportation agencies and organizations do

not want to change existing environmental laws but support a better coordinated review process. The key to shortened time lines for

new runways and airports may be simultaneous versus sequential

processes and set time limits, both at the Federal level and at the

State or local level. Today’s hearing will explore the timetable for

that regulatory streamlining.

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In addition, there is an outdated air traffic control system. FAA’s

computer software dates to the 1960’s. Right now we use the functional equivalent of single lane highways in the sky. If spacing

were reduced via reduced vertical separation minima or RVSM,

more planes could be accommodated. The standards we are using

today were set 50 years ago. Satellite based technology, primarily

GPS technology, would enable planes to fly closer together, essentially converting what is a single lane highway into a 12-lane highway. FAA will provide a status report on that today.

I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses on how air

transportation can be approved. I recognize the gentleman from

Tennessee for the purpose of an opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Doug Ose follows:]

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Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. As you know,

I just added this committee to the committees on which I serve and

I’ve had a couple of meetings of the full committee, but this is my

first meeting of this subcommittee and it’s a little ironic I suppose

to look down and see a group of old friends here to testify and, as

you know, I’ve spent the past 6 years chairing the House Aviation

Subcommittee, and I still serve on that subcommittee, and during

my tenure as chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee, we held

many hearings on customer problems and what we can do to improve our air traffic control system and all of the problems that

you’ve just done such a fine job of summarizing in your statement.

Your statement has hit the nail on the head on many of these

issues.

I first want to welcome Administrator Garvey, who I think has

done an outstanding job as Administrator of the FAA, and also I

see Donna McLean down there and I testified at her confirmation

hearing. She used to work for me at the subcommittee and did an

outstanding job, and I could say, I should say nice things about all

the people here to testify, but I won’t take up all of that time. Let

me——

Mr. OSE. We do have the time, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me just say that the main legislation that we

passed as chairman was the AIR–21 legislation, and that I think

most of us in this room believe will lead to many improvements in

these problems if it has time to take effect.

In the year 2000, there were almost 700 million air travelers,

and to have all of those hundreds of millions of passengers arrive

safely and almost all of them very close to being on time, and have

even more bags arrive, I think the job that the airlines and the

FAA do is miraculous. On the other hand, the airline industry and

aviation is probably the most high profile industry in this country

today. It’s just a fact of life that, if people have 100 good flights

and 1 bad flight, the flight they tell everyone about is the bad

flight that they have.

The demands are out there that all of us have to work to meet

in some way. The demands are out there to always constantly be

trying to improve service and cut down on delays and do everything we can to make the whole system better.

I do understand that the Air Transport Association has reported

that the airlines as a group have spent $3 billion in recent months

to address customer service-related problems over these last few

years, and the customer complaints are way down, but almost half

of what they were just a year ago. But we do have to try to do even

better.

The American Association of Airport Executives, Todd Hauptli is

here to represent them today. Todd’s another long time friend.

They’ve estimated that, if we construct 50 miles of new runway,

our capacity problems would be greatly, greatly reduced. And that,

I think, is the key. I’m told that almost 70 percent of all delays are

weather-related and so we can’t do a lot about that. So we have to

work with that other 30 percent that hopefully we can do something about. But as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, the problem

is how long it takes or one of the main problems is how long it

takes to get some of this new capacity into operation.

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I remember one hearing we had in which they said that the main

runway at the Atlanta airport took 15 years from the time it was

conceived until it was completed. And yet, only 33 of those days

were spent on actual construction. They were 24-hour days, so

around the clock construction, so perhaps you could say 99 days.

But still out of a 15-year period, that’s ridiculous.

In AIR–21 we had a provision that would require the FAA to

study the environmental requirements related to the planning and

approval of airport projects, such as runways. That study was released this past May and reported that the average time from the

start of planning of a runway until the start of construction is

around 10 years, with the environmental impact study occupying

the biggest part, or that’s the biggest single thing taking up this

time.

In 1987, Memphis decided to address congestion problems and

start construction of a new runway. It took the airport 16 years

from the beginning of that process until the runway was finally

opened. That is simply too long. It’s something that we have to improve, and it’s, I think, the biggest single area of where we can improve and speed things up.

The top 31 cities that have the most congestion have built only

seven runways in recent years, and those same 31 cities, I’m told,

have built 47 athletic stadiums just since 1990. So they obviously

have given higher priority to that than they have to something as

important as aviation and our entire aviation system.

So, I’m very pleased that you’re holding this hearing today. I look

forward to the testimony of the witnesses. There are many things

we can do and should do, and I think all of these people down front

are trying hard to solve as many of these problems as we can, and

hopefully we can help them in that process.

Thank you very much.

Mr. OSE. I thank the gentleman. Procedurally, if other Members

come and they have opening statements, we are going to provide

an opportunity to submit them written to the record.

We are going to move ahead here on the testimony of the witnesses. I want to welcome our witnesses today. Joining us, and we

are going to go left to right here, we have Ms. Donna McLean, who

is the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Budget and Programs

and the Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Transportation. Next is Ms. Jane Garvey, who is the Administrator of the

Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation.

Seated next to Ms. Garvey is Ed Merlis, who is the senior vice

president of legislative and international affairs for the Air Transport Association of America, Inc. Directly in the middle is Todd

Hauptli, the senior vice president, legislative affairs for the American Association of Airport Executives. Next to Mr. Hauptli is

Henry Ogrodzinski, who is the president and chief executive officer

of the National Association of State Aviation Officials. Next is Mr.

David Krietor, who is the aviation director for Phoenix Sky Harbor

Airport. And our final witness is Sue Sandahl, a council member

for the Richfield City Council in Minnesota.

At this committee, we swear in our witnesses so if you’d all rise.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mr. OSE. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had your testimony for a couple of

days. I know I’ve read it. I’m sure Mr. Duncan has, as has Mr.

Tierney. We are going to give you each 5 minutes to summarize.

I have a quick gavel, given the number of witnesses we have today,

so, Ms. McLean, you’re first for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF DONNA McLEAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

FOR THE OFFICE OF BUDGET AND PROGRAMS AND CHIEF

FINANCIAL OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION;

JANE GARVEY, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; ED

MERLIS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AND

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION

OF AMERICA, INC.; TODD HAUPTLI, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF

AIRPORT EXECUTIVES; HENRY OGRODZINSKI, PRESIDENT

AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

OF STATE AVIATION OFFICIALS; DAVID KRIETOR, AVIATION

DIRECTOR, PHOENIX SKY HARBOR AIRPORT; AND SUE

SANDAHL, COUNCIL MEMBER AT-LARGE, RICHFIELD CITY

COUNCIL, MINNESOTA

Ms. MCLEAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Tierney,

and members of the subcommittee. I’m pleased to appear before

you today along with Administrator Garvey on behalf of Secretary

Mineta to discuss air transportation, customer problems and solutions. I want to clarify that the request was for our Chief Counsel,

who is still being considered by the Senate. So, as the CFO, I’m

pinch hitting today.

As I will shortly discuss, flight problems, including delays, cancellations or missed connections, is the No. 1 consumer complaint

category and has been for years. In 2000, more than 700 million

passengers flew on U.S. airlines, a 50 percent increase in just 9

years. In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration expects

that the numbers of passengers flying on U.S. airlines will hit 1

billion by the year 2010. This dramatic growth has strained our existing aviation infrastructure nearly to breaking point in some

parts of the country. It is the goal of DOT and FAA, working together with Congress and the industry, to add capacity to the national air transportation system, while ensuring that the individual

consumer is protected.

While the FAA is responsible for aviation safety and air traffic

efficiency, the Office of the Secretary of Transportation is responsible for the economic aspects of the aviation industry. In addition,

the Office of the Secretary publishes DOT’s monthly Air Travel

Consumer Report. The report provides consumers useful airline information in the areas of consumer complaint levels, flight delays,

mishandled baggage rates and airline oversales, or commonly referred to as denied boarding.

As shown in this report, most consumer complaints we receive

fall into three categories, the most common being flight problems,

followed by customer service and then baggage. Although the number of complaints have changed over the past several years, the

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ranking of the top three complaint categories has remained the

same. Total complaints received nearly quadrupled from 1995,

where we received 6,000 complaints, to the year 2000 where we received 23,000 complaints.

Customer complaints often increase when flights are delayed. In

the year 2000, only 7 percent of flights arrived on time, which was

the lowest percentage in the past 6 years. I want to note that in

the first half of 2001, this year, the Department has received 9,800

complaints. Although it’s too early to draw conclusions, it appears

that complaint rates are dropping slightly.

We are committed to working with all interested parties, Congress, consumers and industry, to reduce the number of flight

delays that result in a high level of frustration by the traveling

public. As an example of that commitment, the Enforcement Office

at DOT has recently emphasized two customer protection areas: deceptive advertising and civil rights compliance. In the area of airline advertising and Internet sales, the Enforcement Office has conducted a number of investigations and taken other steps to ensure

that transportation consumers are not deceived and that they are

provided accurate and comparable information to make educated

travel purchase decisions.

In the past 3 years, the Enforcement Office has investigated over

100 cases of alleged discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion. In addition, DOT is currently completing

its review of several thousand complaints alleging violations of the

Air Carrier Access Act in connection with inadequate wheelchair

service. These complaints and requirements contained in AIR–21

have imposed a substantial new workload on the Enforcement Office.

Taking the lead from the Department’s Inspector General’s report on airline customer service commitments, which found that resources carrying out the Department’s aviation consumer protection responsibilities are seriously inadequate, President Bush’s

budget for 2002 seeks additional resources for aviation consumer

protection functions. In particular, we are seeking an additional

$2.6 million in funding, which includes 18 positions and 11 FTEs,

which translate into 11 FTEs for the Enforcement Office.

Before closing, I must point out that we may be beginning to see

a trend toward improved airline customer service. For example, airline customer complaints filed with the Department for the first 6

months of this year are down about 20 percent from the levels experienced over the same period last year. In addition, mishandled

baggage rates have improved in the first 6 months of calendar year

2001, compared to the same period last year.

Likewise, airline on-time performance appeared to be improving

in the first half of this year. The carriers reported 77 percent of

their flights were on time this year as compared to the same period

last year, where the rate was 74 percent. We are convinced, as is

the IG, that if the problem of flight delays is solved, we would see

further declines in many of the complaint categories.

We are also taking steps to improve customer protection requirements in areas covered by the airline customer service commitments. We have already doubled airline minimum baggage liability

limits and begun work on developing a rulemaking to examine,

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among other things, increasing the maximum amounts of denied

boarding compensation. Notwithstanding recent indications of improvement, we are all aware that there is much still to be done to

protect the interests of air travelers.

I assure you that we will continue to devote our best efforts in

that regard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Ms. McLean follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Thank you, Ms. McLean. Just for everybody’s sake, on

the table there’s a little light there. It’s got green, yellow and red

lights. Green is you’re in the first 4 minutes. Yellow is you’re in

your last minute and red is the trap-door is about to open. OK? So

thank you, Ms. McLean. Ms. Garvey for 5 minutes.

Ms. GARVEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Congressman

Tierney, Mr. Duncan. It’s a real honor and a pleasure to appear before this committee for the first time along with my colleagues at

the table, many of whom I’ve worked with for a number of years.

Our national air space system is extremely complex, as you suggested in your opening statement. We manage 50 percent of the

world’s aviation traffic. We’ve seen a doubling of passengers in the

last decade. It is highly interconnected and highly interdependent,

and it relies on each sector to operate both safely and efficiently.

Delays in any one of our busiest airports have a rippling effect

throughout the entire aviation system. For example, on one single

day in December, delays at LaGuardia caused delays at 73 other

airports by the end of the day.

All sectors of the industry, as you indicated in your comments,

airlines, airports and the government, share a responsibility for action. There is some good news this summer. With a great deal of

cooperation from the airlines and certainly a tremendous amount

of help from mother nature, we’ve had 4 consecutive months of decreases in air traffic delays compared to the same 4 months last

year. On average, when we look at the last 4 months, we’ve seen

about a 10 percent decrease in delays. And our preliminary numbers for July show this continued decline in delays as well. So, the

trends are heading in the right direction.

We’ve approached this issue with some short-term initiatives or

tactical initiatives and with longer term strategies. I want to very

briefly touch on both approaches.

First, let me say that I think we’ve had an unprecedented level

of cooperation between the FAA, the airlines, the pilots, and the

controllers in managing the system. Every day just after 5 a.m.,

from the FAA Command Center planning begins and that planning

continues every 2 hours throughout the day. It’s real-time decisionmaking, real-time collaboration.

Last fall, in preparation for this summer’s travel time, we conducted a joint evaluation with the airlines. We looked at what

worked and what didn’t for last summer and we came up with a

series of recommendations. I’m pleased to say we’ve implemented

all of those recommendations. One of the most important recommendations was joint training that we conducted with the airlines. During the winter months and the spring months of this past

year we trained thousands of controllers, supervisors, airline dispatchers and pilots, and I think that’s really made a difference.

We also focused with the airlines on the most challenging airspace for us. It’s going to be no surprise to anyone here but it is

the airspace between Chicago, Boston, and Washington. That’s the

congested triangle. We’ve identified 21 initiatives to relieve those

choke points. Those initiatives really are focused very much on

gaining efficiency in the existing air space.

We’ve changed air traffic procedures. We’ve established new sectors, and we’ve created new routes. We’ve completed work on about

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14 of those initiatives and have plans under way to complete the

rest. We are beginning to see some results from that. For example,

in the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Area, we are seeing that

westbound and northbound traffic out of those three busy New

York airports are experiencing much fewer delays.

In addition, we have what I would call unprecedented cooperation with NAV Canada. They join our teleconferences each day and

they’ve also opened up their airspace to accommodate our flights on

the busy East Coast. In the medium term, we certainly aspire to

achieve greater efficiency through expanding capacity on the

ground. I think, as Congressman Duncan noted, in some ways our

greatest challenges involve expanding the runways and expanding

that ground side capacity.

We recently, last March, issued a report on the capacity benchmarks of the 31 busiest airports in the country. We looked at these

airports in a couple of ways. What’s the capacity there now? What’s

the demand there now? What does the future hold? We determined

the number of flights that those very busy airports can accommodate safely, both in good weather and in bad. I think the benchmark report has been a very, very useful tool for airlines, for the

FAA and for airports to find the right set of solutions that we can

focus on for our busy airports. We think it’s being used effectively

by the airports.

Runways certainly are our greatest challenge.

Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the streamlining report that we

issued with a great deal of guidance and support from the Secretary and his staff. We issued that in May. We are very busy implementing a number of those initiatives and focusing obviously on

the ones that we can do administratively. We are getting an enormous amount of support from the Secretary on this effort. I want

to just pick up on something that both you and Congressman Duncan made in your comments, and that is that when you look, this

issue is complex. It is not an easy issue to solve. But I’m absolutely

confident that working together we can find the right solution.

Thank you for allowing me to be here.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Garvey follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Thank you Ms. Garvey.

What is the pleasure of the committee: to take another witness

or go vote and come back. It’s two votes, one on the rule and then

a subsequent 5-minute vote so you want to take another witness

and then go vote. Mr. Merlis for 5 minutes.

Mr. MERLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our shared concerns about the problems facing air transportation.

Simply stated, our aviation system’s three components of capacity—airlines, air traffic control and airports—are out of sync and,

as a result, we unfortunately have too many delays each and every

day. While safety is and will always remain our paramount goal,

these delays undermine faith in our air transportation system, inconvenience our passengers and shippers and cause untold discomfort and substantial cost to our customers, our employees and our

economy.

How did we get to this state of affairs? Well, simply stated, each

component of the system is controlled by very different forces. The

airlines, the airports and the air traffic control system each have

different masters, and my written statement goes into some detail

about what drives each one of those. Suffice it to say the airlines,

the FAA and the airports have undertaken aggressive programs to

address the infrastructure shortfall, both individually and collaboratively.

I’ve attached to my statement a copy of a letter to President

Bush from a broad cross-section of industry and labor which provides an outline of the necessary action plan. This plan was put together last week at an aviation summit at which Administrator

Garvey very graciously participated. I further enumerate in my

written statement, some actions taken unilaterally by the airlines

and collaboratively with the FAA in order to deal with the delay

and customer service problems.

So, what in the long run can we do? There are several ways in

which Congress can provide major assistance to enhancing the expansion of our national aviation system. First, we believe it’s imperative to identify our aviation infrastructure shortfall as the

major national crisis that it is. Congress should move quickly to define through an appropriate legislative finding the national purpose

behind airport development projects at our most significant airports. Congress needs to make it clear that certain key airport

projects are to be given the highest priority in order to foster the

maintenance of safe and efficient interstate air commerce.

Second, from a procedural standpoint the much talked about idea

of environmental streamlining must become a reality. Consolidation, coordination and expediting of Federal and State environmental reviews, including Federal preemption, is necessary and the

elimination of counterproductive and often mischievous alternatives analysis requirements would all serve to make environmental review more functional and less dysfunctional. Too often today’s system invites small vocal and legally facile groups to manipulate the process to halt growth despite the needs and desires of

the larger community. Environmental streamlining, of course,

would take us only so far in expediting airport infrastructure deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Sep 16, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81310.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ployment. Even more must be done. So let me offer some conceptual approaches that might upon further exploration offer some

other solution.

Congress might wish to consider a mechanism sharing some of

the characteristics of the military Base Realignment and Closure

Commission to engage in a review in a national priority setting for

specific key airport infrastructure projects. Federal transportation

funding, not simply airport funding, might be utilized to incentivize

communities with priority airport infrastructure needs to meet

their interstate commerce responsibilities. Similarly, if necessary,

disincentives might be applied as well in those localities that seek

the benefits of air transportation, but not the shared responsibility.

And, recognizing that in the broader community there is often significant support for better airport infrastructure that is drowned

out by a vocal minority, steps might be taken to identify that support and appropriately factor it into the decisionmaking.

Mr. Chairman, this national issue cannot be relegated exclusively to local decisionmaking. The Congress needs to step in and

establish a set of rules and requirements together with rewards

and incentives that foster expansion of the system upon which our

country has become so dependent. Failure to undertake such a national approach on the capacity issue will render the air transportation system gridlocked, resulting in severe adverse economic consequences over the next decade or longer.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present the statement.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Merlis follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Merlis. For the benefit of the other

Members here we’ve got 6 minutes and 15 seconds. We’re going to

go ahead and recess. We are going to go over and vote. Again it’s

two votes, so we’ve got this one plus another 5-minute and then

we’ll be back and we’ll start with Mr. Hauptli.

[Recess.]

Mr. DUNCAN [presiding]. OK. Well, they’ve asked me to start this

hearing. Oh, excuse me. That wasn’t very long.

Mr. OSE [presiding]. Mr. Hauptli for 5 minutes.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Duncan

and other Members as they come in. What I’d like to do is obviously submit my written testimony in its entirety.

Mr. OSE. Excuse me, Mr. Hauptli. Close that door back there,

please. Thank you.

Mr. HAUPTLI. I will just make a couple of points and, with luck,

yield back a little of my 5 minutes.

Over the past decade we have experienced tremendous growth in

aviation—200 million additional passengers in the system in the

past decade. We have not kept growth with the infrastructure investment that we need to. AIR–21 gives us an important step in

that direction, but it still is not enough. We still have an infrastructure investment gap in this country.

Over the next decade, 350 million additional passengers are expected in the system. That’s like taking the entire population of the

United States and adding that onto an already crowded, already

delayed system. We need to build more and we need to begin building today to meet that growing demand. It currently takes 10 to

15 years, as you’ve identified, Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, to go through the local and Federal review and approval

process to build runways. We don’t have 15 and 20 years to build

in the system. We need to start today.

As others have noted, we had one in four flights delayed last

year, 163 million passengers affected, and the bottom line is that

consumer complaints are going to continue unless we deal with

building additional capacity in the system. Beyond just our own desire to get from point A to point B without having to be delayed,

there’s a real economic impact. I mean, in a country as broad, with

the geography that we have in the United States, you need a highly developed, highly efficient air transportation system to move not

only people, but also products quickly and efficiently from point A

to point B. In Germany and Japan you can rely on the rail system.

They have the geography that will allow that. But in the United

States you need an air transportation system to make sure we stay

competitive, both domestically and internationally.

So we need to speed up the review and approval process. We

need to expedite that process, but do it in a way that is not violative of existing environmental safeguards. Jane Garvey of the FAA,

and Secretary Mineta of the Department of Transportation, have

done a terrific job of identifying those areas where they can, under

existing rules and existing authority, try and expedite the process.

We believe there needs to be legislative solutions as well to try and

expedite the review and approval process.

The airport community has submitted something we call EASE,

the Expedited Airport System Enhancement Act. There are eight

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components of it, which are included in my testimony. I’d be happy

to answer questions about any of that. But we believe that those

measures, along with some of the measures that other folks in this

committee and other committees have identified as possible solutions need to be explored. We need to get on with that. We don’t

have time to wait 3 or 4 years. We need to begin that process

today.

With that, I’ll close, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hauptli follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Hauptli. That kind of timeframe, you

might be invited back some day.

Mr. Ogrodzinski for 5 minutes.

Mr. OGRODZINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tierney, Mr.

Otter, Mr. Duncan. It is a privilege to be here today representing

the Association of State Aviation Officials. As you know, we represent the men and woman in State government who serve the

public interest in all 50 States, Guam and Puerto Rico. The States

develop statewide aviation system plans, airport capital investments plans, and together they invest about a half a billion dollars

each year in airport infrastructure, operations and development.

I’m joining you today to bring you some good news about some

of the things that are happening in the industry. As you know, the

States themselves also operate airports. They operate all of the airports in Hawaii and Alaska, as well as some other giants of the industry like Baltimore-Washington International. Congress in 1996

made the State Aviation Block Grant Program permanent and

today nine States are fully responsible for directly administering

Federal airport improvement programs.

Under AIR–21 legislation passed last year, these provisions include accepting a 10th State into the program. The airport approval process is streamlined under the State Block Grant Program

and expedited. Paperwork requirements have been reduced, duplication has been eliminated, and FAA has been able to shift resources that would have otherwise applied to these airports to

other high priority tasks.

In one block grant State, Missouri, there are six brand new airports that have been built in the past decade. As we’ve discussed

earlier today, it sometimes take 10 or 12 years to build a single

runway. But under the block grant program, Missouri has been

able to build six entire airports. Wisconsin, another block grant

State, has used some of the very latest technology and GPS approaches and pioneering loss systems because they are a block

grant State and were able to put these in position faster than the

Federal schedule would allow. Wisconsin also has the world’s first

aircraft deicing system that does not rely upon glycol or other polluting chemicals, because they were able to accelerate a pilot program under the block grant flexibility.

A State does not need to be a block grant State to be innovative.

I’d like to note that the State of Washington recently passed State

legislation requiring cities and communities to protect airports

from incompatible development. The Washington manager of aviation planning, Theresa Smith, says facing the challenge today will

allow for a peaceful coexistence tomorrow. Failure to act will guarantee conflict.

This spring, we at NASAO signed an agreement with FAA Administrator Garvey under which the States and FAA are currently

examining how environmental review requirements can be more effectively and efficiently combined and coordinated to streamline the

overall process. Our goal is to increase airport capacity and decrease delays by expediting the review process on airport construction. We believe that we can speed up the process without endangering the environment in any way.

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We’ve already begun this process. We have a survey out to the

States at the moment. We are working with FAA, and our full report will be issued within a year. We have also pledged to work

with FAA on a strong partnership which will help communities understand how important their airports are and protect them from

incompatible land use and tall structures which could imperil navigation.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, we at NASAO believe

that planning, coordination and cooperation are key for both the

States and Federal Government to work together to solve many of

the challenges we face today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ogrodzinski follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Ogrodzinski. Mr. Krietor for 5 minutes.

Mr. KRIETOR. Thank you, Chairman Ose and members of the

committee. I appreciate the invitation to testify today. I think I’m

the only member of the panel that came to Washington in July to

cool down. So I represent the city of Phoenix Aviation Department,

which owns and operates a three-airport system, including Sky

Harbor International Airport.

In terms of the Nation’s air systems, Sky Harbor is the ninth

busiest passenger airport and the fifth busiest measured in flight

operations. It’s the only airport in the United States that’s the largest station for two major airlines: America West and Southwest

Airlines. Sky Harbor is a critical element of our region’s economic

development infrastructure. The airport generates direct employment for over 40,000 people and generates $20 billion a year in annual economic impact for the State of Arizona.

Meeting our region’s economic development aspirations is dependent to a great extent on the success of this airport. With the

continued growth and demand comes the need to provide necessary

infrastructure.

Sky Harbor, some of you may know, is located in the heart of our

metropolitan area, and while the location provides unsurpassed

convenience, the airport must operate in a complex urban environment. The need for a third runway at Sky Harbor was first identified in the airport’s 1970 master plan and so began a 30-year odyssey. In September 1989, a firm decision was made by the Phoenix

City Council to proceed with construction of the third runway. The

path for the new runway had several inherent challenges. The Salt

River is adjacent to the runway site and needed to be channeled.

The path of the proposed runway traversed the existing Air National Guard fueling unit located at Sky Harbor. The delivery of an

operational runway required 11 years to complete.

The most time consuming phase for the project involved the Federal environmental impact statement process. The EIS process was

initiated in May 1990 with a draft EIS being issued in June 1991.

The draft EIS initiated a heavy round of public comments principally from one source, the city of Tempe, located directly east of

Sky Harbor, which made voluminous comments to the draft EIS.

This we believe was clearly a legal strategy to extend or delay the

process to gain political leverage. The final EIS was not published

until November 1993, and it was not until January 1994 that a

record of decision was issued.

The city of Tempe then filed suit, alleging the FAA did not do

an adequate job in conducting the EIS. In September 1994, the city

of Phoenix stepped in and actually executed an intergovernmental

agreement with Tempe regarding noise abatement procedures. The

IGA resulted in an amendment to the record of decision in September 1994 and the subsequent dismissal of the lawsuit. In total, the

EIS process took about 41⁄2 years to complete, which we believe is

about twice as long as it should have taken.

In order to create an environment to allow the airport to grow

and expand as part of our IGA with Tempe, the city voluntarily imposed, with the FAA’s concurrence, noise mitigation efforts that

have constrained capacity at the airport. With the EIS settled, the

airport was ready to commence design of the project, with the

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added complication of moving the Air National Guard. The new

runway was not operational until October 2000. I would say that

the third runway opened last October at a cost of $175 million. Sky Harbor was able to collect $105 million of the cost through

passenger facility charges. The remaining costs were paid from airport improvement program grants. The availability of these funds

was critical to maintaining a cost effective airport.

Demands for facilities at Sky Harbor is going to continue. We are

right now focused on the development of new terminal facilities at

the airport, and initial efforts to begin the environmental review

for that project already hint at the problems that may face us. FAA

guidelines suggest construction or expansion of passenger handling

facilities is either categorically excluded or may in certain cases require an environmental assessment. However, in this case the FAA

is requiring a full EIS and frankly I can’t blame them. Given our

past history with litigation and airport improvement projects, they

probably have made the right decision in this case. But we now

have delayed the start of design on the new terminal complex. We

estimate that it’s going to add 2 years to the development of these

facilities that will allow us to match our land side capacity with

our air side capacity.

In conclusion, the city of Phoenix appreciates the attention that

Congress and the FAA has placed on addressing obstacles to airport growth. We fully support AAAE and ACI’s EASE proposal,

look forward to working with them, working with Administrator

Garvey and working with the Congress in moving these issues forward.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Krietor follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Krietor. From the city of Richland, Ms.

Sandahl for 5 minutes.

Ms. SANDAHL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name

is Susan Sandahl, and I am a city council member for the city of

Richfield, located in Minneapolis, just south of Minneapolis and

west of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Currently

under construction in Minneapolis is a north-south runway, which

is only 1,200 feet from the nearest homes in our community, and

I’ve included a map along with my comments.

As you know, the large—the current debate resolves around the

aviation industry’s call to increase capacity at airports by building

more runways as quickly as possible. Many in the aviation industry

contend that local communities near airports are obstructing airport capacity by adopting a NIMBY attitude at the expense of our

national transportation infrastructure.

We also know, however, that some airport operators provide too

little dialog with local communities. Too often I hear from my colleagues around the country that their local airports adopt an arrogant attitude and an unwillingness to include local elected officials

in key runway decisions. Predictably, an adversarial relationship

quickly develops.

Mr. Chairman, I’d like to tell the committee today that it does

not have to be that way. I know firsthand that local communities

and airport operators can work together to increase airport capacity. When the airport seeks citizen input, it can be a good neighbor

to the surrounding communities impacted by its new runways. I

served as a citizen representative on a committee that reviewed the

design of the potential new runways at MSP.

The citizen members of the committee were able to point out to

the Metropolitan Airport Commission that a proposed runway running due north and south would not be in anyone’s interest since

it was going to impact development that the city of Bloomington

was proposing at the end of the runway. The MAC, alerted to the

potential problem, reconfigured the runway and Bloomington went

ahead with its development, which is now called the Mall of America. This is a terrific example of how early citizen involvement can

help the process and benefit both the airport and the surrounding

communities.

As a Richfield City council member, I can also testify to the benefits of working with the airport operator and not against it. The initial north-south runway EIS did not take into account many of the

noise impacts that the city of Richfield’s experts believed would impact the community due to the nearness of the proposed runway,

1,200 feet from the nearest home. Initially both Richfield and the

MAC were engaged in an emotional litigious relationship. The confrontation was expensive to the city and the airport and the potential cost to the airport in years of delay in constructing the runway.

I’m happy to report, however, that, in 1998, the adversarial relationship was changed. Cooler heads at both the city hall and MAC

headquarters were able to sit down and draw up a noise mitigation

agreement for a runway that both Richfield and the MAC could live

with. Under that agreement, the city of Richfield and the MAC

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jointly approached the legislature and obtained $5 million to begin

buying out the homes affected by the new runway.

Since that time, the community and the MAC have collaborated

to produce expanded capacity for the airport, and have achieved

many of the city’s noise mitigation goals and resolution of land disputes that had been hotly contested. These included the buyout of

homes that would become uninhabitable when the runway went

into use, working together to secure State and Federal funding for

extensive noise mitigation efforts and joint coordination of a highway bridge to build better access to the airport.

Also, we’ve been able to resolve disputes regarding park and ballfield replacement issues and a land exchange to allow the city to

build its city garage. Richfield and the MAC also collaborated to

produce a study on low frequency noise, which is the low, wall

shaking rumble associated with takeoffs. Little scientific study had

been done on this issue and, as a result, the FAA had not yet

issued any regulations on how to mitigate it.

This groundbreaking jointly funded study by Richfield and the

MAC is the most comprehensive to date and was the focus of a recent Federal interagency meeting last month. Hopefully it will pay

off in dividends to airport communities across the United States if

the FAA can reach standards that will affect all airports in the future.

In short, working collaboratively and by their joint decision to

view each other as partners and not as adversaries, the Airport

Commission and the city were able to complete a runway and to

begin noise mitigation efforts before completion.

And, just for a point of information, our EIS for our north-south

runway took 2 years. Local communities cannot match the tremendous resources of some of our Nation’s largest airports. However,

when we feel cut out of the planning process for major infrastructure developments that impact our citizens, we will fight to protect

them. Airports have it within their power to prevent that. That’s

why I respectfully ask this committee to urge airport operators to

adopt attitudes toward their airport neighbors similar to the attitude that we were able to reach with the Minneapolis Airport Commission.

Airports should dialog with their neighbors, not ignore them. We

need to invite local community stakeholders to have a meaningful

seat at the table. Airports that have been reluctant to do so thus

far may be pleasantly surprised.

I thank the committee for inviting me here today and would be

happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sandahl follows:]

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Mr. OSE. I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony. We

are going to go to questions now. I’ll go first.

Ms. McLean, the airline industry adopted or made some voluntary commitments last month to improve customer service. What

is the Department’s view of those commitments?

Ms. MCLEAN. I think we think it’s a very positive sign that ATA

and their member airlines are willing to step up again with the

concerns of consumers and Congress, that additional steps need to

be taken and they’ve taken those. So we are very encouraged by

that.

Mr. OSE. One of the things we debate up here is whether or not

there is a need for an airline passenger’s bill of rights. Given the

industry’s steps to date, does DOT see a need for such legislation

at this time?

Ms. MCLEAN. Well, at this time the administration does not have

a position on those bills. Typically, what we do is provide a position

if the bills go to floor action, and I believe we’d be taking, you

know, following the tradition there and taking a position then.

Again, we are pleased that ATA is coming up with additional customer service commitments.

In addition, as I said in my testimony, we are very hopeful that

the number of complaints are declining, even though slightly. So

we are hoping we are seeing a trend.

Again the focus by Congress, by all these players at the table,

we are hoping is resulting in a very positive start to a positive end.

Mr. OSE. One of the issues that I heard all across the table was

this idea of streamlining the process by which airport runways are

approved. And, if I understand the phrasing of this, it would result

in the collocation of rules that govern such runway construction.

Has the Department taken any position or considered issuing a single government-wide common rule that would have been signed by

all the lead agencies that have the 40-odd bites of this apple, governing new airport or runway construction?

Ms. MCLEAN. Well, let me just say that environmental streamlining is a top priority for Secretary Mineta, and I think Administrator Garvey and I are here to display that commitment. As far

as immediate actions taken by the Department to make environmental streamlining happen, we are working with the administration, within the administration with the other interested departments and agencies to make sure that not only is it a priority of

Secretary Mineta, but also a priority for the administration.

So we would like to take smaller administrative steps to get the

immediate benefits right now. We are looking though in the long

term using what—more of a common rule approach, which is what

you’re referring to. We have been exploring that, but we don’t have

a position at this time. But I’ll be happy to work with you and your

staff as we continue to explore that as an option.

Mr. OSE. Well, I do want to examine this a little bit more closely

within my first 5 minutes here. If the Department or the Secretary

is willing to take the immediate steps, if you will, on the common

rule, the question I have is what are those intermediate steps that

the Department or the Secretary is willing to take now and when

are they going to be taken?

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Ms. MCLEAN. Well, I think that I don’t want to commit the Secretary to exact specifics, but let me say that it is his intention to

talk to the Department of the Interior, to the EPA, to the Army

Corps of Engineers, to work with CEQ within the White House to

make sure that this is a top priority and not just for the Department of Transportation, because, if it’s just our priority, it’s not

going to work. We need to coordinate and to make sure that it’s the

priority of these other agencies and/or pieces of this administration

as well. So that means working with them in a fashion where they

can—we can all agree on specific steps to take to get ourselves in

a more environmental streamlining activity.

So the administration is showing that environmental streamlining is a top priority.

Mr. OSE. Do you have a time line on which the administration

is going to be—— Ms. MCLEAN. I can get back to you on that.

Mr. OSE. I would appreciate that.

Ms. MCLEAN. Absolutely.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. OSE. I don’t know how much you travel, but I travel every

week and it would be nice to have some of this stuff simplified.

The other issue is we talked about the enforcement actions, the

complaints that we had to the Department from customers. How

many enforcement actions has DOT pursued based on these complaints?

Ms. MCLEAN. Well, to date this year, we’ve taken 11 enforcement

actions and three—well, we call them enforcement orders, and

three enforcement orders are in the final stages of completion. The

total penalties are a little over $200,000. But, I want to stress that

the Enforcement Office within the Office of Secretary, which has

this responsibility, is compliance oriented, not penalty oriented. So,

what we try to do when there are complaints is try to immediately

contact the airlines. If there are, let’s say for instance, deceptive

practices in advertising, we try to immediately contact the airlines

and if they’re willing to take action, then, you know, we give them

a warning, then we consider the issue closed until further notice

comes in against that particular airline for similar activities.

So our goal is to have the best information to the customer as

possible. And, if that means taking care of a lot of these complaints

administratively and quickly, then we believe we are meeting our

goals, which is serving the public and making sure the customer

has the best information possible.

Mr. OSE. My time is up. Mr. Tierney for 6 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I was just inquiring as to how many

rounds we are going to go. Mr. Ose asked me how many I would

like to go and I said one.

I understand that runways are one part of the approach that

people are taking on congestion. But I think, Ms. Sandahl, you

made the point very clearly, there’s always going to be opposition,

legitimately, in a lot of instances with noise and with water or air

pollution issues. And I think you made the point. That’s what we

have these public processes for, and we are ostensibly in this to

make things better for the public.

Ms. Garvey, Mr. Hauptli recommends streamlining the review

process by eliminating the need to look at off-airport alternatives.

In fact, I think he came to the prior conclusion, and I think I’m

quoting from his written testimony, ‘‘at the busiest airports, there’s

no reasonable off-airport alternative to a new runway that will reduce airline delays.’’

Now that concerns me because I happen to think quite differently than that. I think regional plans, effective region-wide

transportation plans that utilize excess capacity and other regional

airports, would be one way to look. I think that high speed rail

would be another direction to look, which I think we have grossly

ignored, probably to our detriment.

What are your feelings, Ms. Administrator, with regard to that

comment that off-airport alternatives should be ignored?

Ms. GARVEY. Let me answer that in a couple of ways. First of all,

we actually worked very closely with AAAE and ACI on the Expedited Airport System Enhancement [EASE] proposal that Mr.

Hauptli referred to, and think they deserve a lot of credit. There

are a lot of excellent suggestions that we are, in fact, implementing, and I think really get at the spirit of it.

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On that particular suggestion, I guess we might have a slightly

different view. We think looking at other alternatives is part of the

process. I think the question that AAAE and ACI have raised,

which is also legitimate is, whether it is appropriate sometimes to

do it through the EIS or can you do that simultaneously? And

those are fair questions.

In some cases, I think it is absolutely essential that it is part of

an EASE process and others you may be able to do it concurrently

but not part of that process. I think from our perspective, what we

want to do is not close any options. Runways are great answers.

But in, as you suggested, in some cases, it might be high speed

rail. And, in some cases it might be emphasizing other airports. So

we think we have to keep all of those options.

Mr. TIERNEY. It struck me, Mr. Krietor, when you mentioned

$175 million for funding your new runway. All we have spent on

high-speed rail projects for next year is going to be $25 million for

the whole country. $175 million for your single runway. I think

that indicates to me we aren’t looking for alternative solutions perhaps as we ought to.

Ms. McLean, has this administration looked into whether or not

additional Federal funding for high-speed rail could result in increased ridership? And, that would free up some of the congestion

at our metropolitan airports?

Ms. MCLEAN. That is definitely a good question. We have a situation in Aviation and Highways where we have guaranteed funds as

a result of Air–21 and T21. And so those programs have trust

funds. As a result, they are funded pretty much at the full authorized level.

So I think, unfortunately, we don’t have that type of situation for

high-speed rail, which makes funding a little more competitive for

that mode, because it’s not guaranteed funding like the aviation

and highways.

We certainly understand that high-speed rail is something to be

looked at. Passenger rail service is a focus that we will be focusing

in on probably the next several months when we talk in general

about the future of AMTRAK.

Mr. TIERNEY. I would hope—this administration has been onehand clapping in terms of what you hear on policy, on alternatives

to just building more runways and having more airport capacity

and dealing with the congestion there. I am always struck—and I

think there was an op ed piece in one of the newspapers over the

weekend—I think the Washington Post—that talked about some of

the disparities between what we spend on airports and highways

even, and what we spend on rail.

Last year, we spent $33 billion on highways. Last year we spent

$13 billion in aviation. And, last year we spent $521 million on

AMTRAK. You know, when you consider that one out of every

three flights is for 350 miles or less, particularly out of places like

San Francisco where 50 percent of the flights go less than 350

miles and out of Chicago’s O’Hare where 40 percent of the flights

go less than 350 miles. They are both considering controversial new

runways to reduce congestion. Why aren’t we considering highspeed rail? I think it is sort of a crazy situation.

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I understand they don’t have a streamline bit of funding. But I

think if we really want to be imaginative and this administration

and the President wanted to get with it, they could really start

looking at better expenditures, better use of our funds and better

transportation policy that would include high-speed rail. You know,

it just begs for it. The whole high-speed rail project would require about $11⁄2 billion a year over the next 20 years. That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable investment if it’s going to have a serious positive impact

on congestion.

Mr. Krietor, I see you nodding your head. I assume that, as favorably disposed toward airports as you may be, that you think

there is some common sense to that?

Mr. KRIETOR. I think that the impact of rail varies dramatically

from metropolitan area to metropolitan area. In our environment

in Phoenix, we’re in a metropolitan area that has grown by a million people in the last 10 years. So there is huge demands on air

service. And, we are in a relatively isolated environment, so the

ability to grow your airport to assist with the community’s economic development aspirations are critical. We don’t even have

AMTRAK service in Phoenix, AZ, the sixth largest city in the

United States.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Tierney. I want to go back to Ms.

McLean here. Congressman Tierney is right. I do have a lot of

questions, so we’re going to have a few rounds here. You mentioned

that three enforcement orders and final stages of resolution. When

will those be completed?

Ms. MCLEAN. In the next several months. I can get you a specific

date for the record.

Mr. OSE. Several months. Does that mean maximum of 6, 3?

Ms. MCLEAN. A couple, it sounds like. Should be finished within

the next few weeks. And the other one, we can get back to you on.

Mr. OSE. How long is it taking—when we get a complaint, how

long is it taking generally, either the mean or the median, to resolve that complaint?

Ms. MCLEAN. May I submit that for the record, because I don’t

have it with me today? Thank you.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. OSE. Ms. Garvey, you made the statement that NEPA is only

1 of approximately 40 laws, Executive orders, and regulations protecting the environment. And that these individual requirements

have not been very well harmonized with NEPA’s requirements for

airport construction or runway construction.

My question is whether or not you support the concept or the

idea of co-locating all applicable Federal or agency rules governing

the construction of airports or airport runways?

Ms. GARVEY. I think that’s a very, very interesting concept. At

Secretary Mineta’s suggestion, we have taken a first crack at that.

We have both an FAA order and an airport handbook that pull together all of the things we need to do and that we know are necessary and essential for an airport to do to see a project through

to completion.

But I think that’s really only the beginning. I think the idea that

you’ve suggested about a kind of a co-location, sort of a one-stop

shopping of at least for a place for people to understand what all

the rules are, what all the issues are, I think could be very helpful.

As Ms. McLean mentioned, the Secretary has certainly reiterated

his commitment to working at the highest levels to get cooperation

from other Federal agencies.

I think another organization with whom there is great potential

for harmonization is the Council on Environmental Quality [CEQ].

There is a new chairman of that council. I know that we certainly

have worked closely with the staff at CEQ in the past. But your

point about harmonization is critical.

Mr. OSE. You talked about an agency or a legal rule there in

your remarks just now. Is that something under development? Is

it something that’s actually been published for comment? What is

the status of that?

Ms. GARVEY. We have an FAA order and we have an airport

handbook that’s used by our airport office.

Mr. OSE. What do you mean by that?

Ms. GARVEY. It’s actually guidance. That guidance is in place

right now, but we are updating it. I’m quite sure that the work

that we’ve done is just about complete, but I’ll get back to you with

a specific date of completion. If I’m wrong on that, I will correct

that for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

FAA Order 1050.1E been through public review and is scheduled to be issued in

final form in the spring of 2002. The Airport Environmental Handbook revision will

be issued in two parts. The part dealing with environmental impacts (e.g., noise, air

quality and water resources) is scheduled to be available for public review in February 2002 and finalized in June 2002. The part covering policy and procedures is

scheduled to be available for public review in September 2002 and finalized in December 2002.

Mr. OSE. If I understand correctly, guidance is not something

that is binding.

Ms. GARVEY. I’m sorry. Let me be a little bit clearer on that. I’m

talking about sort of the list of all the regulations that people have

to follow. That’s really what is included in our order.

Mr. OSE. And, that’s been——

Ms. GARVEY. We have something like that, but what I’m suggesting is that is really only a first step. I think what I’m hearing this

committee suggest is something that may be broader than that and

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may include some of the other rules and regulations that are out

there that might be pulled together into one document, if you will.

Mr. OSE. Well, to whom has this legal order been sent?

Ms. GARVEY. It’s something that is used by our attorneys, by our

regional offices, and is often shared with a project sponsor and airport that might be interested.

Mr. OSE. Is it in the public domain?

Ms. GARVEY. Yes, it is, sir. Yes, it is, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. So if I understand, your response is that FAA supports

the idea of co-locating these rules?

Ms. GARVEY. That’s correct, Mr. Chairman. And, we would like

to work with the committee as has been indicated by the Secretary’s office.

Mr. OSE. I’m not going to be able to get my second question here

completed. So Mr. Tierney is yielding his 5 minutes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Not all of it.

Mr. OSE. Now is the FAA also considering a government-wide

common rule, much like the uniform relocation assistance rule that

DOT provided that would be co-signed by each of the various lead

agencies that are involved in new airports or airport construction— airport runway construction? Is DOT or is FAA considering supporting that or do they have a position or are they in opposition

to it?

Ms. GARVEY. Well, I think that there is a difference between the

Uniform Relocation Assistance Act that I think is important, and

our proposal because we would be dealing with so many different

statutes. You might have to change many of those statutes.

We’ve talked with your staff a little bit about this and want to

pursue this a little bit more. We think that the first step is co-location, that is, bringing all the rules together. We think the second

step, a possible uniform rule, might be more challenging, if you

will, and one we would like to explore a little bit more in detail.

There are a lot of environmental rules, as you’ve suggested, and a

lot of statutes. Whether it’s necessary to go through a statutory

change, I think is still an unanswered question at this point. I

think the first point, as you’ve suggested and your staff has suggested, is really co-location and harmonization; making sure everyone understands the steps and perhaps putting some time lines to

some of those steps is important as well.

Mr. OSE. I always like to come back to time lines, so I appreciate

you mentioning that. In terms of the co-location, you’ve got something that’s in—that’s presently in guidance form, if you will. And

we’re talking about perhaps making it a rule or formalizing it

through the Administrative Procedures Act or otherwise. In terms

of the common rule—the common rule I’m talking about here that

would follow onto that co-location, has any work been done in making that final or moving that toward the final process?

Ms. GARVEY. It has not, Mr. Chairman. And, as we indicated a

little bit earlier in both Ms. McLean’s testimony and mine, we’ve

really been focused on what we can do within the administrative

authorities that we have. And, also, I think the FAA has a real

concern about NEPA and a real commitment to not wanting to

challenge that in any way, because of its longstanding history and

importance, as the committee has suggested.

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Mr. OSE. Do you have the administrative authority to finalize a

co-location rule as opposed to—— Ms. GARVEY. I’m not sure. I see the staff is nodding yes, but I

would like to go back and talk to our folks about that. And again,

what our first threshold question is really to pull the rules together

and to make sure that part is clear—co-location as you’ve said.

Mr. OSE. Do you have the administrative authority to make a

common rule here?

Ms. GARVEY. I would suspect that we do. I would like to go back

and check with our legal staff on that. But I would suspect that

we would have that authority. Again, we would want to work with

the Secretary’s office on that.

[The information referred to follows:]

The FAA does not have the authority to co-locate all applicable Federal agency

rules governing new airport and airport runway construction.

Mr. OSE. How long do you think we need to—when we send you

the letter asking you this question, how long do you think we need

to give you to provide the answer?

Ms. GARVEY. Well, I’m sure, Mr. Chairman, we can get an answer back pretty quickly. We’ll make sure people start looking at

that today. We won’t wait for the letter.

Mr. OSE. And, you also talked about the issue of State process

versus local process versus Federal process, where sometimes it’s

sequential as opposed to concurrent. How do you reconcile that? I

mean, that’s a particular issue in California, and perhaps I think

it’s San Jose right now, which has this ongoing struggle between

a Federal environmental impact statement versus the city’s or the

State’s CEQA compliance? How do we basically break this log jam?

Ms. GARVEY. In some cases—for example, San Francisco, which

is enormously complex, they are conducting environmental work for

their runway. Their talk about filling in the Bay is very, very challenging. We are working very closely with them. They are doing simultaneous State and Federal analyses.

I think the work that we are doing with NASAO that was mentioned earlier in testimony is going to be extraordinarily helpful.

We actually have a contract and memorandum of understanding

with NASAO—these are the folks that have to deal with it all the

time—to take a look at the State laws and to identify places where

we can eliminate duplication, do some things simultaneously, use

a process that might be more preferable to another, and make sure

that processes are not contradicting each other or are not in conflict.

By September of this year, we are going to have identified some

very specific areas that we’re going to work on together. So I’m

looking forward to that. We’d very be happy to get back to the committee with the initial findings of this group. We signed that contract, I think, in about April of this past spring.

Mr. OSE. Do any of the other witnesses have any input on this

issue of simultaneous or concurrent processing versus sequential

processing?

Mr. MERLIS. If I may comment, I think that you have to go that

way and go to a concurrent review and really, where necessary,

preempt some of these State and local stumbling blocks. Let’s face

it. We’ve got a national problem. If we’re not going to deal with it

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from a national perspective, we are going to have this problem for

time immemorial. We’ve got to address the issue from a broad perspective and not a piecemeal perspective, for which some of the

things we don’t have any answers, but we think it needs to be addressed boldly and a little unorthodox perhaps, ensuring that we

comply with the environmental imperative, but at the same time,

not tie an albatross around the economy of the United States of

America because community A or community B doesn’t want to do

something.

Mr. OSE. Any others?

Mr. OGRODZINSKI. Mr. Chairman, as the administrator said, we

are working very closely together beginning to look at streamlining

and doing these environmental review processes simultaneously.

We do, at NASAO, believe that’s key. We think we should do them

simultaneously wherever possible.

Second the word you use, harmonization, I think we need to harmonize the requirements of the different review boards and committees and so on so that we are talking about the same issue and

doing those as quickly as possible rather than letting them drag on,

and then perhaps even if a firm deadline is set, looking at judicial

review afterwards.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman. I think that’s very important. Let me give you one concrete example. SEATAC, Seattle,

in 1997, received from the FAA their final environmental impact

statement. They are still waiting for their Section 401 and 404 permits. That’s 41⁄2 years later. So there’s a pretty good example of a

situation where if we had been successful in getting a coordinated

review with all of these agencies simultaneously providing input

and trying to work through the difficult issues there, we wouldn’t

be waiting around 41⁄2 years later after the FAA has issued its final

environmental impact statement.

Mr. OSE. The 404 permits you’re referring to are the incidental

take permits that follow from the Army Corps of Engineers and

Fish and Wildlife?

Mr. OGRODZINSKI. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. I am way over my time. Mr. Tierney for 10 or 12 minutes, whichever he’d like.

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t need as much. I don’t want people to think

it’s for a lack of interest. Back in May, we had a hearing substantially on the same issues and I had the benefit of those transcripts,

and as would anybody that wants to go to the Web site of the

Transportation Committee. If the chairman wishes to put any of

the material on record here today, you certainly have my—— Mr. OSE. Without objection.

Mr. TIERNEY. If you want to put on any——

Mr. OSE. You’re not objecting, are you?

Mr. TIERNEY. I’m not objecting. The other unrelated question—

Ms. Garvey, you’re getting quite a workout here today, and I apologize to the others, but there’s an issue that at least I think substantially affects what’s good for the flying public and that has to

do with some unrest about a particular labor issue. And I’m not entirely clear, but it appears to me that there is at issue whether or

not the FAA has the authority to implement the contract that some

people say has been negotiated. Others say that the OMB has eiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Sep 16, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81310.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ther ordered you not to implement it or maybe taking the position

that you shouldn’t implement it. And I guess the question would

be, can you bring us up to date on that issue? What is the FAA’s

authority and how are we going to resolve that and how are we

going to improve relations so that things can move forward there?

Ms. GARVEY. Congressman, just by way of background, I think

as the committee knows, we are one of the only agencies in government that has the ability to negotiate with our unions and received

that flexibility back in, I believe, 1996. So, we have a handful of

contracts that we have been able to negotiate.

It’s interesting because this really is a flexibility that one would

associate much more with the private sector, but we are obviously

still part of Government and still part of an executive branch and

our budget still goes through the Department of Transportation

and through OMB, and then obviously to Congress.

So we agreed in the very early days of the first contracts we negotiated to, as part of the process, go through the Secretary’s office

and then go through OMB before we finalized these contracts.

We’ve done that with each one of our contracts during the previous

administration, and we are doing it currently with this administration.

OMB has raised some questions and is not moving forward at

this point. We’re still obviously working with OMB on this. The

labor union in question has raised issues and has filed a complaint

with the Federal Labor Relations Authority. We are waiting for a

hearing on that and certainly hope it can be resolved quickly. We’re

not just waiting for the hearing, however. We’re still very much in

discussions with OMB on that issue and certainly agree with you

and hope it will get resolved quickly.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now Mr. Merlis, when you were testifying, you indicated something about the need to preempt some of the local controls or reviews. You did say that, I think?

Mr. MERLIS. Yes, I did.

Mr. TIERNEY. My question for Ms. McLean, is this administration

advocating a preemption of local control on these issues?

Ms. MCLEAN. That certainly wasn’t part of my statement, and

that’s not the position at this time or, you know, we’ll get back to

you as soon as it appears as if we’re discussing those issues. But

at this time, that is not something that we are discussing.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. Thank you.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Tierney. There’s a comment in one of

the—and I can’t remember whose testimony it is about having final

completion dates on records of decision and the like. Was that——

Mr. HAUPTLI. That is mine. I think you’re referring to mine, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. OSE. One of the questions that I always have is that having

been in the real estate development business, sometimes these

things seem endless in terms of you do the EIR or EIS or the EA,

and someone questions it and it takes 6 months to do the review.

So you fix the inadequacy and then something else comes up and

then you take another 6 months. How do we bring closure to these

things, because frankly, we are spending taxpayer resources? I

think people would want something material done.

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Mr. HAUPTLI. That’s a very good question, and one we’ve struggled with. We have been working with the FAA and with industry

to try to come up with some solutions. Frankly, my members like

Mr. Krietor and others would take some predictability in the system, even if it was a longer time period than they would like, just

to have the predictability. You know, any process that you can

measure in decades is a failed process. And I think we can all

agree that the process in terms of getting the review and approvals

for runway construction has been pretty flawed. We have taken too

long.

Mr. OSE. Your statement begs the question, how long should runway construction take? From start to finish, from concept to completion, how long should it take?

Mr. HAUPTLI. That’s an easy sounding question with perhaps a

more complicated answer. But there’s a component on the front end

that involves getting approval locally. And Mr. Krietor and others

can talk about some of the process you need to go through. But,

once you have that local approval, the FAA, frankly, has not been

our enemy in this process. They have been helpful. We can get

EISs through the FAA in usually 3, sometimes 4 years, something

in that time period; longer than we like, but with the resources

that they have, they do a very good job trying to move that process

quickly.

Part of what we are trying to deal with is what’s on your chart

that the staff has prepared there, all of these Federal laws and all

of these other agencies that I think, as you termed it, Mr. Chairman, took 40 other bites of the apple, in trying to get that coordinated in one sort of package—one bucket, if you will, of review.

That’s a very complicated process but one that we support, trying

to figure out to shave—we believe you can shave 3, 4 and 5 years

off of these processes or more without being violative of the environmental laws.

Mr. OSE. So how long should it take to build a runway?

Mr. HAUPTLI. Well, since it’s the third time you’ve asked it——

Mr. OSE. I’m going to keep asking it.

Mr. HAUPTLI. If you could just back up the truck and build it,

that process takes anywhere from a year to 2 years. You have to

factor in the review and approval process. This ought to be measured in single digits, whether it’s 4 years, 5 years, 6 years, 8 years;

something in that time period. Intuitively, it shouldn’t take 6 or 8

years to pour 2 miles of concrete and put some lights in and all the

things you need to do. But frankly, it is going to take multiple

years to do it under the best of circumstances.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Tierney wants me to ask you how many years——

Mr. HAUPTLI. It’s going to take 4.3 years, Mr. Tierney, on every

runway.

Mr. OSE. Yes, Mr. Krietor.

Mr. KRIETOR. If I could help Mr. Hauptli out here. We’ve just totally reconstructed our north runway complex at Sky Harbor Airport, which was just like building a brand new runway. It didn’t

involve any EIS. It took approximately 9 to 10 months to complete

the actual construction of that project. If you put the design element in front of that, you’re probably 11⁄2 to 2 years.

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Mr. OSE. You took a runway, concrete in the ground, runway

being used, shut the runway down, jackhammered the runway up,

put down new rebar, poured the concrete, what have you, took you

24, 26 months?

Mr. KRIETOR. That’s correct, Mr. Chairman. It was actually an

asphalt runway that we demolished and then totally rebuilt as a

concrete runway with new taxiways, etc.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Garvey—and I apologize for going back and forth

because I’m going to give each of you a chance. The FAA is doing

some EISs on proposals. I’m trying to find out which airports are

involved in terms of awaiting FAA action for completion of those

EISs and the date on which they were submitted together with the

final date, if you will.

Ms. GARVEY. Mr. Chairman, I’d have to get back to you further

on the record on that, because if I’m understanding the question,

we’ve got a number of environmental efforts underway throughout

the various regions from EAs to full EISs. And perhaps it would

help to get back to you, perhaps, broken down by the regions,

what—how many we have. We can focus primarily on the EISs and

also add the EAs as well.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. OSE. I have done actually a little bit of work here on this

and that is some of these EAs and what have you—for instance,

Tampa or San Francisco—San Francisco, in particular, the EIS

was started in July 1999. It’s expected to be completed in December 2003, which is 31⁄2 years, 41⁄2 years. I’m just trying to figure

out why is it that we can move these things expeditiously in some

cases and in others——

Ms. GARVEY. That’s absolutely a fair question. For example,

Houston, which took about 18 months, didn’t take long at all. Most

cases have to do with two critical issues. The first involves the complexity of the environmental challenges. San Francisco, for example, is an airport that ranks as one of the most delayed. So we’ve

put together a dedicated team. This team is focused solely on San

Francisco, both at the national and at the regional level. In this

case, they are proposing to fill in the Bay for the project and that

involves a host of agencies.

The second is an issue that Mr. Hauptli referred to earlier, and

that is the community opposition. The level of community support

has an awful lot to do with how successful a project is. When the

mayor of a community is supportive—when the community is involved as was mentioned in the case of Minneapolis/St. Paul, then

there’s sort of a political will at the local level to really move mountains, in a sense, to get it done.

So, I think the environmental issues combined with some of the

community concerns that are often raised at the local level, really,

in many cases, determine the time lines to some degree.

Having said all of that, I want to say, as I have said before other

committees of the Congress, we are absolutely committed to doing

everything we can, whether it’s dedicating teams, or following up

on the co-location idea you mentioned earlier. We are absolutely

committed to doing whatever we can to move the process more expeditiously.

Mr. OSE. One of the questions—I mean, Mr. Tierney and I struggle with all the time is how do we allocate our Federal resources.

And one of the challenges we have is we can put it in A, B, C, D

and on and on, ad infinitum.

If we have an airport where it is difficult to make something

happen and we have other airports that are waiting in the queue,

if a locality says, look, we will do something but the net result of

which, under an analysis, is a reduction in net capacity, why would

we put a ton of more money in that airport, reduce the capacity,

compound the problem in the system and not help this other airport over here whose improvements might very well expedite capacity improvements? How do you reconcile that?

Ms. GARVEY. We wrestle with the same question. I do think the

benchmark report that we put out this year has been already extraordinarily helpful in that. It really allows us to take a look quite

clearly—and some of your charts indicate this as well. What are we

seeing? When you look at thousands of airports in this country it’s

a handful of airports, the hubs, where we see the greatest amount

of traffic.

So by focusing our resources at some of those critical hubs, I

think we all recognize that we can make a difference.

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Mr. OSE. What’s our No. 1 challenge, if you will, in our airport

infrastructure? I mean, is it San Francisco? Is it L.A.? Is it Sky

Harbor? Where should Congress collectively say, all right, let’s go

in and fix this and then let’s go to that, and then let’s go to the

next one? Do we have a list that basically says if we eliminate the

log jams here, here, here and here, we make 40 percent improvement in the capacity. Where’s that list?

Ms. GARVEY. That’s the list that is included in the benchmarks.

The list that’s included in the benchmarks does a very good job of

identifying the top 31. Of the top 31, there are 8 that we call the

pacing airports. You could break it at the top 16 or you could break

it at the top 8. We focused on the top eight. And what we did is

propose an action plan for each one of those airports that would improve capacity. We said is it technology? Is it procedures? Is it runways? In some cases, it’s all of the above.

In the case of Atlanta, which is one of the top eight, a runway

there can increase capacity by about 40 percent. That’s a pretty

good number. We give Atlanta a lot of credit for going forward with

a runway. If you look at a place like La Guardia, it is much tougher. They can’t put in a runway, so they have to look at other options there.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Tierney taught me something the other day when

we were talking about this hearing coming up, and that is, if you

quantify how much we invest, say, in the airport capital—how

much capital we have in an airport compared to what we are

spending on rail, there is a significant disconnect, if you will, just

in the raw numbers.

And, speaking of La Guardia, the suggestion has been made that

we ought to be finding a way to move people from La Guardia to

Kennedy or La Guardia to Newark, or something of that nature,

rather than trying to force them through La Guardia.

But, other than a list of the 31 airport hubs ranked by hours of

delay, I’m not familiar with any FAA priority list, so to speak, mentioning specific projects, likely payback, if you will, and the like.

Ms. GARVEY. Let me refer you to one other document, which is

on our Web site. We have something that’s called the NAS Operational Evolution Plan [OEP]. We just completed that recently.

We’ve worked very closely with the airlines and with airports on

it. I think what’s significant about the OEP is that it addresses exactly what you’re talking about. It sets forth commitments over 10

years, but not just for the FAA, but also for the aviation community. It includes runways.

So, if you look at the runways that are planned for the future,

you will see some of the runways that we’re talking about. I think

what’s challenging for us as a community, and I mean that for the

FAA, the airports, and the airlines, is that some of our toughest

airports that have the worst bottlenecks, also are the most complex

in terms of solutions. You’ve talked about La Guardia. We’ve got

a lottery in place there. That’s one solution. I don’t think it ought

to be the permanent solution, but the challenge is determining

what it is.

If you look at a place like San Francisco, again, the environmental issue surrounding the challenges of filling in the Bay are

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no small feat. They are taking it on, and I give them a lot of credit.

The airport director’s working very hard on it, but it is tough.

Chicago is another very challenging airport, but I’m very happy

to see that both the Governor and the mayor are looking at that

issue with us.

Mr. OSE. I want to come back to this. Mr. Tierney, for however

much time that he cares.

Mr. TIERNEY. Beating a little bit of a dead horse, but it goes

back. None of these studies that you are talking about in terms of

ranking these airlines take into consideration what the impact of

high-speed rail would be. It barely takes into consideration any regionalization of utilizing capacity that fully isn’t utilized. Certainly

doesn’t take into effect what could be done in a place like San

Francisco where 50 percent of the traffic is 350 miles or less. If you

put in a high-speed system that dealt with that kind of traffic, I

would imagine it would have enormous impact on improvements,

environmentally as well as traffic-wise in and out.

The simple fact of the matter is for the last 3 years, fiscal 1999

to fiscal 2001, funding for capital expenditures in the rail industry,

$2 billion; funding for capital expenditures in aviation, $13.9 billion, a 7 to 1 ratio. If we look at President Bush’s budget request

and what the House passed for fiscal year 2002, funding for capital

expenditures in the rail industry, $311 million; funding for capital

expenditures in aviation, $6.2 billion, 20 times more for aviation

capital expenditures than rail capital expenditures.

I understand that airports’ peoples’ jobs are airports. That’s

where they are focused and where they are thinking. But, we have

to have, particularly with the Department of Transportation and

the Secretary, some broader thinking on this, a national thinking

of what we are going to do with our infrastructure money that is

going to resolve some of these issues and make peoples’ lives easier, more comfortable, more efficient and better use of their time as

well.

I would hope that would include some look at what high-speed

rail could do. Other countries do it. It isn’t just all geography. That

is simply not true. We haven’t had the will to do this. We have incredible people with interest in airports and highways. And, unfortunately, a small but hopefully growing group of people with some

interest and recognition on high-speed rail. I would hope that people that are involved in the airport industry would start sharing

some of that interest as a part of the solution of some of their problems, which would help get products to market easier as well as

people around if we absorb our traffic in different ways and work

on that.

I would hope that becomes part of our framework, no matter

what industry we are and hope you take that message back to the

Secretary, and through him to the President, and maybe have a

better idea of how we’re spending some of this money. Back to you.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Sandahl, you probably have more experience just

from the real world perspective. How do we reconcile these competing interests, if you will? I mean, Richfield had an interest in minimizing the amount of noise from the new runway. Northwest runs

a huge operation out of Minneapolis/St. Paul. The country has an

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solve this stuff? San Francisco—I fly in and out of San Francisco

regularly. But trust me, they’ve got a problem. Sacramento, on the

other hand, which I fly in and out of regularly also has excess capacity. I mean, how do we resolve this stuff between Federal, State

and local interests?

Ms. SANDAHL. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that’s being proposed, as I understand it, is a suggestion that maybe local communities could actually deal with the airport mitigation money to

allow them to apply it directly as opposed—and apply for the funds

as opposed to having to go through the airport operator. That

would allow our local communities to feel more in charge of satisfying their residents.

I think Congressman Oberstar is correct in saying that noise is

a capacity issue. If you don’t have noise complaints, you will substantially reduce the times to do your EISs. Beyond that, I don’t

have answers to everything either.

Mr. OSE. Why not? You’re talking about quantifying the decibels

and the CNELs around the airport and the like, am I correct in

that, in terms of take-off patterns and the landing patterns?

Ms. SANDAHL. Two different issues. One that Richfield is currently dealing with is low frequency noise. That is the vibration

noise caused by the side airport noise and also the airport run-up

noise. Those are not recognized by FAA, and there is no medication

money for those problems. That is one thing we’re looking at and

hoping will be addressed.

The other issue is just the D and L patterns; where do the airplanes fly over and where the noise impacts on the ground by the

people underneath the flight paths? Those clearly are in place and

are mitigated to the extent that there’s funding available. One of

the problems we have run into at Richfield is that we had some of

the mitigation funds used to apply for the—under the airplane

flight path mitigation on our homes and then discovered that mitigation will not solve our low frequency noise problems. It’s a different type of noise, and those will not solve those problems. That’s

why we are looking at that issue.

Mr. OSE. I want to go back for a minute. I want to ask each of

the four gentlemen in the middle their respective positions on the

co-location issue and the common rule issue.

So Mr. Merlis, do you support the co-location concept for runway

and airport construction?

Mr. MERLIS. Yes. We have to find a way to co-locate that decisionmaking process. I would add, though, that I think the FAA’s

primary mission is such that they shouldn’t be saddled with that

responsibility. You get into some difficulties if you create some sort

of u ̈ ber agency. But you don’t want to have a conflicting mission.

I think that by establishing a national policy, whatever that is, including high-speed rail, if that includes high-speed rail and directing the implementation and giving that responsibility somewhere,

to take all those statutes and put it together and get these things

done with, I think you go a long way toward expediting that piece

of the regulatory process. You still have the local problem to deal

with, but at least the regulatory process gets addressed.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Hauptli.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Yes.

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Mr. OSE. Mr. Ogrodzinski.

Mr. OGRODZINSKI. Yes.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Krietor.

Mr. KRIETOR. Yes, Mr. Chairman. But I would also agree with

Administrator Garvey that many of these issues are—the more difficult and complex issues are local issues that do need to be addressed at the local level. We need a Federal process that helps us

move through those local issues in a reasonable timeframe.

Mr. OSE. Let’s go to the common rule, then, in terms of structuring a common rule governing the Federal bites of the apple, to

quote a phrase, do you support that concept?

Mr. MERLIS. Yes, sir. And suggest you also preempt some of the

States that might have a disparate perspective on that.

Mr. HAUPTLI. Yes. We agree with that. Again, the FAA’s primary

mission, of course, is safety. The FAA wants to build these runways, but other Federal agencies have other missions. Building capacity isn’t necessarily high on their priority list. So getting them

involved in the process and making that clearly identified is something we would find very useful.

Mr. OGRODZINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You used the word

harmonization. We believe that is part of the co-location that is

necessary in a single rule. As Mr. Hauptli said, there are many different rules governing many different aspects of those 40 bites of

the apple. If we could harmonize those, that would be extraordinarily important. And, second, in doing this, I want to make sure

from the States’ point of view that FAA maintains its leadership

for aviation in the United States. It would not be, I think, appropriate for some other organization which does not have aviation as

its primary objective to organize that objective.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Krietor.

Mr. KRIETOR. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. One of you testified that with the addition of 50 runway

miles, we could eliminate, I think, 60 percent of the congestion.

Mr. HAUPTLI. That would be me again, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OSE. Where do we build the 50 miles?

Mr. HAUPTLI. The 50 miles of runway is essentially 2 miles of

runway at the top 25 most delayed airports in the country. Our

statistics are a little bit different than yours. For the year 2000,

our statistics show that at the top 20 airports—the 20 most top delayed airports account for 92 percent of the delay in the system.

What makes aviation a little bit different in ways of streamlining— the highway folks will come in and tell you they’d like to streamline their review and approval process. And, they’re talking about

all projects.

In aviation, we have an identified universe of a couple of dozen

airports around the country that are critically important to making

sure we reduce delays. Going back to what Administrator Garvey

noted in her testimony about one 4-minute delay at Chicago can

cause hundreds of delays throughout the system by the end of the

day. If we can focus on a small group of delayed airports in the

country, we can do things to speed up the review and approval

process and reduce delays dramatically throughout the system.

Mr. OSE. I just want to make sure that I understand the collective opinions here. We need to pursue the safety features that come

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with improved software. Would you agree with that? We need to

improve the baggage handling and tracking systems as a means of

reducing consumer complaints. Is there any way to address our obvious challenge of moving a billion people a year without building

new runways? Anybody have any—Mr. Merlis says no. I mean if

you’re silent on this issue—— Mr. HAUPTLI. The airport guy says no. Sorry, Mr. Tierney. You

need to build more runways.

Ms. GARVEY. At key airports, that’s true. You need to build more

runways.

Ms. MCLEAN. I would agree with Ms. Garvey, yes.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Ogrodzinski.

Mr. OGRODZINSKI. Mr. Chairman, we at NASAO certainly have

been promoting the development of new airports and new runways

for 7 years, but Mr. Tierney said something very interesting and

important about the regionalism. You know, there are many airports in and around New York. We don’t have to all fly into La

Guardia. I think that sort of regionalism has a role to play in reducing delays and cancellations.

Mr. KRIETOR. If I could use one brief example. With our weather

and wind conditions in Phoenix, a runway basically handles 20 million passengers. So, when we added the new runway there, we increased our capacity to handle from, say, approximately 40 million

up to 60 million passengers. So the runway there essentially gave

us the capacity to meet what we know is going to be the region’s

growth over the next 15 to 20 years. It is a dramatic increase in

capacity. And I don’t see any other way in our environment that

we could have achieved that objective without the runway.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Sandahl, in your Richfield, Minneapolis area, I

know that area is growing, maybe not as quickly as Los Angeles

or others, but what breadth of discussion occurred in terms of

meeting the needs for moving people in and out in the context of

your involvement?

Ms. SANDAHL. Mr. Chairman, we did talk and there was public

discussion about a fast train between Minneapolis and Chicago.

Many of our flights are wing tip to wing tip between Minneapolis

and Chicago. So that was one of the things that was talked about.

Obviously, there were no dollars and it wasn’t done, but that was

discussed.

Mr. OSE. I’ve ridden the train from Minneapolis to Chicago.

You’re talking about high-speed.

Ms. SANDAHL. They were looking at high-speed. I had an all

night train ride and we stopped at every milk run.

Mr. OSE. All right. I’m not sure that I have any other verbal

questions, Mr. Tierney. If you care to offer any you might have.

Mr. TIERNEY. None. Let’s wrap.

Mr. OSE. I want to thank the witnesses for appearing today. We

have a number of questions we’re going to follow-up with you individually. We’re going to leave the record open for 10 days for Members, questions and the like. You have a statement you want to

enter into the record?

Mr. TIERNEY. No, I don’t.

Mr. OSE. Other Members who may have a statement, we will

allow that in written form.

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I want to thank our witnesses again. Today we learned there is

much that can be done to try and address our customer problems

as they relate to delays. All parties, including the Federal Government, airlines, airports, State officials, local officials are part and

parcel of this. And we are working together to a certain degree to

help address this capacity problem among others.

Clearly, the testimony was that the co-location or the common

rule concept has validity and that some measure of promise is held

with the streamlining in some of these environmental regulations.

I do stand ready to assist in this effort. I know Mr. Tierney does

also. In fact, he’s been educating me about northeastern transportation problems. So I look forward to making this happen, and I

thank everybody for appearing today.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I hope that I remembered to ask

that miscellaneous matters be put in the record, particularly that

article I referenced.

Mr. OSE. Without objection. Thank you all for coming.

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich, Hon. C.L. ‘‘Butch’’ Otter, and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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