The Honorable Norman Mineta
Transportation Secretary
U.S. Department of Transportation
400 7th Street, S.W
Washington, DC 20590

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We write to express our grave concern about the recent conduct of the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in lobbying Congress for the
authority to privatize America's air traffic control (ATC) system.

Although the FAA has said that it had no intention of privatizing ATC
functions, it worked behind closed doors to gain authority to replace
federal controllers at 69 airport towers with contract employees of private
companies. Then, in an apparent private deal with the Alaska delegation,
the FAA agreed to be prohibited from privatizing Alaska airports. How, Mr.
Secretary, can you defend a system that has one standard for Alaska, and
another for the other 49 states? If privatization did not pose a threat to
safety and efficiency, why would the experienced legislators of the Alaska
delegation bother to exempt their own airports?

And now, in an effort to win Congressional approval of the conference
report on Vision 100-Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act ("Conference
Report"), the FAA appears ready to use a similar scheme to exempt towers in
other states. It seems the Administration has different standards for air
traffic control towers depending on the votes the Administration needs to
pass the Conference Report. It has recently come to light in a report in
the Tulsa World that the FAA has promised Senator Nickles that the
Riverside Airport control tower in his home state of Oklahoma will not be
privatized. It is not surprising that Oklahomans are concerned about
privatization, and that concern was reflected in the support the Lautenberg
amendment received from Senator Inhofe. The Administration will need
Senator Inhofe, and others of the 11 Republicans who supported the
Lautenberg amendment, to have a change of heart in order to pass its plan
to privatize air traffic services. Once again we ask, if privatization
poses no threats to safety and efficiency, why are members of Congress
demanding they be exempted from the program?

This is not the first instance of improper behavior on behalf of the
Administration on this issue. Shortly before Senate consideration of the
Lautenberg amendment in June, Administration officials sent a factually
incorrect e-mail to many Senate offices (except that of Senator Lautenberg)
in a failed attempt to lobby against the Lautenberg amendment. The e-mail
claimed the scope of the proposed Lautenberg provision was much broader
than it actually was. This instance was chronicled in a hearing by the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, on July 8.

Safe and efficient air travel for all Americans is a non-partisan
commitment from both the House and the Senate. The FAA is charged with
protecting the safety of air travel, not cutting political deals-especially
when those deals appear to be based on no sound safety or economic policy,
but rather political calculations. To that point, we are asking you to
instruct the FAA Administrator to report to Congress on any and all
arrangements to exempt FAA-run control towers from being contracted out.
We assure you that failure to report fully and promptly on this matter will
lead to a loss in confidence among ourselves and our colleagues in the
Congress in the leadership of the FAA.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,


______________________ ____________________
Frank R. Lautenberg James L. Oberstar
U.S. Senator Ranking Democratic
Member
U.S.
House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure