What Don Young, R-AK says about ATC privatization

From the AAAE's cable TV program...

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AAAE "AVIATION NEWS TODAY"
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH REP. DON YOUNG


HOST: Big topic of conversation on Capitol Hill this week. The FAA
Reauthorization bill, conference report. Just before the August break, the
conferees met and came up with an agreement. The House was unable to take it
up before the break and now we're obviously, in the aviation community,
hopeful that that can occur soon. Why is this bill so important for
aviation?

DON YOUNG: Well, It is the reauthorization of the FAA bill and it will allow
the API money to continue to flow into the airports for projects. It will
keep the airports up to speed. If we don't have this bill by Oct. 1, there
is a strong possibility that there will be layoffs and moneys will stop
flowing because the extinction of the program occurs Oct. 1.

I think it would be a terrible disaster if it doesn't become law. Now why is
it so controversial, very frankly, right up front with you, I was asked to
take up the conference report by the Senate and by the House so they could
pass it before the recess and that was the agreement. And we did reach a
compromise with the Senate. It was filed and then, low and behold, neither
body brought the bill up and it's been laying out there for 45 days, and,
consequently, there's been some great misinformation about what the bill
does and does not do. And there's some opposition to it now. So we're trying
to overcome that opposition and we'll hopefully bring it to the floor before
Oct. 1.

HOST: One of the charges that seems groundless if you look at the bill
itself is that this bill requires privatization of the air traffic control
facilities. How do you respond to that?

DON YOUNG: If anybody would read the bill and quit looking at, I call it,
the fictitious ads on television, the bill itself does not require any
privatization. But more than that because I do believe in the control tower
system. We were able to protect 94 percent of the control tower's positions.
94 percent will still be under FAA.

Of the 15,000 employees, 900 possibly could be privatized, possibly get
contracted out. But the impression is that we are now creating an unsafe
airways is absolutely wrong. In fact, the Inspector General came out last
week, Mr. Mead, with a new report that in fact the contract towers have a
better record than the FAA towers. It is a classic example of the public
being misled by an interest group. This is what the problem is and why some
of my members now say "I can't vote for it." I ask them to read the bill,
get back to the reality. We're getting good response. And hopefully that
will occur, like I say, before Oct. 1.

HOST: This week, the Secretary of Transportation sent a letter out signaling
his strong support for the bill, asking Congress to move it. The FAA
Administrator's been on television responding to some of these inaccurate
allegations and putting some facts out on the table. Tell me, what do you
think the timing is and what do you think the chances are of getting this
bill done?

DON YOUNG: I think we're going to do it probably the last week of September.
Again, I want to stress the fact that if we don't do this I'm not going to
ask for an extension. I am writing this legislation. It is good legislation,
it is a good conference. It has been misrepresented by interest groups and I
think that's very unfortunate for the general public. And I, very frankly,
will tell you the airports support me across this nation, as they should. I'
m asking them to get more actively involved and to support calling members
that this is good for aviation, good for passengers, good for the airports
themselves and it's good for transportation. And we will hopefully achieve
that goal before the first of October.

HOST: If you and you colleagues could get 94 percent of what you wanted in
every piece of legislation, wouldn't you take that deal?

DON YOUNG: (Chuckling) That's what I keep telling them. And remember what
the present law is. The present law is you can contract out all of the
control towers. That's present law. I said to the administration, that's
what they wanted, I said to the administration, "no we're not going to do
that. We're going to, in fact, have, 94 percent of the control towers
protected." The VHS towers were not protected. That's all we're talking
about, those that were recommended for possible contracting out. And there
were 71 of those.

Of course the criticism of myself is that I exempted the state of Alaska and
there's a reason for that. One is the Juneau Field itself is going to be
under Capstone next year so it wouldn't be eligible to be contracted out
anyway. The Merrill Field is a real complex issue. That's within the city of
Anchorage and it really is in direct conflict with the military base which
is about a half-mile away which has the F-15s, F-16s and the AWACS planes.
And we have the main International Airport which is in direct route of the
Merrill Field and then we have Lake Hood, all in that mixing bowl. We
decided at that time to leave it as it is until we can find out, there's a
better way to do it. Lastly, my hotel room is on the top floor of the
Sheraton and the airplanes take right off towards my hotel room every
morning I look out and there's one coming right at me. It's an interesting
experience and I want to make sure everything is done right in that field.

*****

Now here is the guy who's personal staff re-wrote the language of the FAA
reauthorization bill during the Reconciliation Conference. Any of you who
actually heard this interview will note that this stalwart public defender
of American aviation actually *did* say "VHS Towers", and then went on to
explain why Juneau and Merrill (both in his home state) should the only
"VHS" towers exempted from privatization in the entire USA. If a contractor
can't handle the mix of traffic at Merrill (with 180,000 operations) how
could a contractor possibly handle places like Van Nuys (500,000+ ops),
Boeing Filed, Tulsa Riverside, Dekalb-Peachtree, etc? And if Juneau is
exempted because of the Capstone Project, what about contracted out towers
like Bethel, which is already under Capstone even as we speak? Should
Bethel Tower be returned to the FAA? Should Don Young actually stay in the
top floor of the Sheraton-Anchorage with all of those airplanes "coming
right at" him if the Alaskan VHS towers were to get privatized?

Chip, ZTL