Omission Of Four Words May Spell Doom For Landmark Deal
Four words. That may be
all that marks the difference between passage of an unprecedented
agreement on the decades-old Wright Amendment compromise in North
Texas, and the bill being locked in eternal debate on Capitol
Hill.
Proponents of the much-storied compromise that would lift flight
restrictions at Love Field in Dallas, TX were dealt a potentially
significant setback Wednesday, as the House Judiciary Committee
pushed through a version of the proposal that strips away
anti-trust protections.
The Dallas Morning News reports the wording in the original
agreement -- reached in June between the cities of Dallas and Fort
Worth, TX as well as Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, and DFW
airport -- states the compromise complied with transportation
"and any competition laws."
Opponents of the agreement have tied the bill up for months,
saying those words exempt the measure from future court challenges
-- and in turn, would effectively lock out the DFW market from new
airlines flying out of Dallas Love Field.
That didn't fly with committee chairman Rep. James
Sensenbrenner... nor with ranking member Rep. John Conyers, who
removed those four words from the original agreement.
Some congressmen who have pushed the bill through on Capitol
Hill -- seeking passage of the agreement before a December 31, 2006
deadline -- fear the deletion of those four words may kill the
entire bill.
"As a practical matter, it’s the Wright amendment
that’s anti-consumer and anti-competition," said Rep. Spencer
Bachus to the DMN. "If we adopt this amendment, we will litigate
this thing for the next 10 or 15 years."
As Aero-News reported in
June, the agreement would allow Southwest to
immediately begin through-ticketing on long-haul flights from Love
Field... and would completely strip away the ban on nonstop
long-haul flights in 2015. In exchange for the deal, the number of
gates available to Southwest -- and other airlines -- at Love would
be reduced from the current 32, to 20.
It is that reduction -- aimed at keeping a lid on traffic and
noise from the increased number of flights allowed from Love --
that opponents say would diminish competition at the inner-city
airport... as those gates are already spoken for by Southwest,
American and Continental.
Conyers commented that if the agreement is as good for
competition as proponents say it is, "then shielding it from any
challenges under antitrust laws is unnecessary."
The matter is not dead just yet, however -- as new protective
language may still be added to replace the stricken wording. It may
prove telling, however, that no such language was added by the
House Judiciary Committee.
Despite the setback, Sen. John Cornyn -- who is consponsoring
the Senate bill with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison -- put a positive
spin on the proceedings -- saying he was "glad there's some
movement" on the House side, after months of debate.
"Our goal continues to be to try to work through this rather
than get everybody locked down into hardened positions which would
delay passage," Mr. Cornyn said.