FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I would first like to start out by saying that I appreciate the Rules Committee making this amendment in order. And while I am going to withdraw the amendment, I think it's very important to talk about this because it's a very important aspect of the Interstate Commerce Act.
Just to give you a little bit of background, in 1994 when we were doing the FAA reauthorization bill, Congress recognized the importance of airports to interstate commerce and enacted legislation to prevent State and local governments from imposing discriminatory taxes on airport users to fund local projects unrelated to airport infrastructure improvement, maintenance, and operations.
However, for nearly 20 years, State and local governments have taken advantage of a loophole by applying the burden of the tax not only to airport users but all similar entities within that taxing jurisdiction. This has allowed State and local governments to completely circumvent the intent of Congress and levy discriminatory taxes against interstate travelers, in particular, rental car customers.
The intent of the 1994 law is very clear. Targeted taxes imposed at airports are to be used at airports for airport-related projects. We must not continue to allow State and local governments from circumventing these restrictions.
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment which deals with a TFR, a temporary flight restriction, that complicates things at the air show in Cleveland. There are actually several air shows that this is a problem with, but the Cleveland Air Show happens to be the worst one.
The reason I am doing it is because I do a lot of air shows and fly in a lot of air shows, and I am intimately familiar with how the TFRs work. The problem we've had in the past is when the Cleveland Indians play at Jacobs Field, there is a stadium TFR right now, which is a temporary flight restriction for any stadium with a game going on, whether it's football, baseball, whatever. That TFR is 3 1/2 miles in radius and 3,000-feet deep.
Well, with the airport so close to the stadium, if there is a rain-delay game that is postponed and rescheduled and you have the air show in Cleveland, which is one of the most historic air shows around the country, it completely eliminates that air show. The irony is that the stadium there, the Cleveland Indians' stadium, only seats 43,000 people; and there are 90,000 people at the air show. So it creates a problem.
What I am trying to do is clarify and allow the air show to go on when there is a game going on. Now, here is the irony. This is the most important part. There is what we call an air show TFR, temporary flight restriction. It's more restrictive than a stadium TFR. In fact, an air show flight restriction is 5 miles in radius, and it's 12,000-feet deep. It completely encompasses the stadium TFR. So if there is a game going on at the same time as an air show, they are still going to be completely protected, and it is going to be completely encompassed within that TFR, and they can both proceed. If, for some reason, the air show ends early and the game is still going on, then it will immediately revert back to the stadium TFR, and everybody is happy, and we move forward. There is never a single point in time when there is no protection over that stadium. It has always been a problem, and we are just trying to clarify so the people of Cleveland can continue to do the air show.
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, again, I know there's a lot of confusion out there, and I hope there's staff listening and there are Members listening in their offices.
Again, the Cleveland Air Show, I fly a lot of air shows, and this is one of my favorite air shows. And it's an extraordinary aviation community because it used to be home to the Cleveland air races. And again, this never, at any time, lessens security one bit. In fact, it makes security stronger because the TFR around an airshow is even tighter than a normal TFR. It's bigger, it's deeper, and you can't even turn a prop without getting permission during an airshow while it's going on. So there will never ever be a time that this stadium is not underneath the TFR.
I'm not trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. I'm being straight up on this thing. It's a problem, and we need to fix it. So there's no reason why two events can't go on at the same time, if that ever is a problem. And it has been in the past. We just don't want it to be in the future.
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. We did not contact the FBI. But we did contact Homeland Security. Homeland Security did not get a response back to us. However, and I've provided to the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee the response from the FAA--they took no position. And we still leave that authority to them. They can still, if they think it needs to be more restrictive, they can do that. So I didn't want to take that completely away.
I think probably the biggest problem is I think that sports authorities didn't realize there are TFRs associated with an airshow which are actually even more restrictive and bigger. So the best thing you could do is have an airshow next to your game. You're going to have a better TFR, I guess the irony is.
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of an amendment which I call the Herrick amendment, named for the gentleman who brought the matter to my attention, a restorer of old aircraft.
This amendment requires the FAA to preserve original aircraft engineering data in the agency's possession. You can kind of think of this as blueprints of our Nation's very earliest aircraft. It extends for the time from 1927 to 1939, 1927 being the very first typed certificate that was ever issued by the CEA at that time, the FAA now.
Right now, the FAA is currently authorized to destroy that data. In my opinion, this destruction represents the disappearance of very detailed documentation surrounding the golden age of aviation. In some cases this data is converted to a CD or is converted digitally.
What happens is the FAA policy then requires the agency to destroy the original documents. In the world of aviation, to those of us who are very close to aviation, this would be comparable to making a copy of the Declaration of Independence and then destroying the original. It is unclear how much of this original data exists, which is all the more reason why I think we need to preserve it, to find out how much is there.
What my amendment does is it simply requires the FAA to preserve original aircraft engineering data in the agency's possession of aircraft from 1927 to 1939. It requires the FAA to revise the order which provides them authority to destroy this data. The revision would prohibit such destruction. And it makes the documentation to be preserved under this act available to the public upon a Freedom of Information Act request, subject to a prohibition on using the documents for commercial purposes.
I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
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