NBAA's Bolen Confronts FAA Officials At Washington Forum
At a forum held this week to consider changes to the funding
mechanism used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for
providing air traffic services, National Business Aviation
Association (NBAA) President and CEO Ed Bolen challenged a panel of
aviation industry officials who support user fees as a primary
means of revenue generation for air traffic service providers.
"As leaders in industry and government work to determine the
best means of preparing our national air transportation system for
the needs of the 21st Century, NBAA is pleased to be a part of
forums like this one, which encourage a forthright dialogue about
FAA costs, and effective approaches to addressing those costs,"
Bolen began.
In recent weeks, some government and aviation industry officials
have contended that the FAA is faced with declining trust fund
balances, a reduced general fund contribution and increasing
operational costs. These claims indicate a willingness for renewed
consideration of general aviation user fees to address revenue
shortfalls.
In his rebuttal to the user fee proponents on today's panel,
Bolen addressed concerns about FAA funding, and questioned whether
consideration of user fees for general aviation is justified.
"First, let's be clear on what a
user fee is," Bolen said. "It is a weight-and-distance-based means
of charging those who utilize the air traffic system. I'm not sure
that user fees will provide a better approximation for general
aviation's use of the system than that provided by the fuel tax.
There is no simpler and more accurate way to distinguish between
heavy and light users of the system than to measure the amount of
fuel burned - small aircraft use less fuel and pay lower taxes;
large aircraft use more fuel and pay higher taxes. Why would we
want to discontinue using a mechanism that is so simple and
accurate?
"Second, where they are in place, user fees bring with them the
administrative costs required to support a large and expensive
bureaucracy of collectors, administrators, auditors and
accountants," Bolen continued. "In the European Union alone,
processing invoices can cost between $85 to $125 per invoice. Fuel
taxes, by contrast, are directly remitted to the federal
government, eliminating the need for a large bureaucracy to collect
the taxes from hundreds of thousands of individual pilots and
aircraft owners. Why would we want to set aside a system that costs
so little to implement in favor of one that requires high
administrative costs?
"The bottom line is this: The US has the largest, safest, most
diverse air traffic control system in the world. We would question
whether it makes sense to scrap a system that has worked well for
35 years in order to replicate foreign models that have not proven
as effective."