Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Coleman and other Members of the Subcommittee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony on a critically important issue to our Nation. I am genuinely pleased to take part in this program since it is designed to focus the attention of Congress and the Federal Government on how we spend federal transportation dollars throughout our country. I am here today to testify on the federal government's investment in airport expansion projects.

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Act of 1991 (ISTEA), P.L. 102-240, has been called our nation's premier transportation planning statute for good reason. Congress passed this legislation to develop an economically efficient and environmentally sound, National Intermodal Transportation System -- consisting of all modes of transportation, One of the cornerstones of the National Intermodal Transportation System is the National Highway System. As you know, the NHS was signed into law last year as the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, P.L. 104-39. The NHS system is about 160,000 miles of roads and contains the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways and those principal arterial roads which are essential for

interstate and regional commerce and travel, national defense, intermodal transfer facilities and regional trade.

The significance of these two federal statutes can not be understated. The Federal Highway Administration joined with the states and the metropolitan planning organizations to determine which roads would be part of the National Highway System and would, in turn be eligible for a dedicated source of funds apportioned from the Highway Trust Fund. Congressional plans are to integrate our nation's transportation system as we look towards the next century by concentrating diminishing federal dollars on those roads that serve Americans the most. Today, the NHS is the backbone of our nation's transportation system because 4.1 percent of the nation's highways carry 40 percent of all highway travel, 75 percent of all trucking commerce and 80 percent of all tourist dollars.

I would like to congratulate you Mr. Chairman and other Members of the esteemed Committee for your elimination of Surface Transportation Projects in last year's Transportation Appropriations bill and I support your efforts to do so this year. You should be applauded for banning highway demonstration projects because those specific earmarked projects often wasted scarce federal resources. The Committee wants the "bcst bang for its buck" and by diminishing end runs around transportation planning procedures the nation as a whole is no longer losing cost efficiencies by disrupting funding priorities.

I now must inform you of why I am here today, I am here as a Congressman and as a guardian for the American taxpayer to ensure that fed" dollars are invested wisely and not thrown at billion dollar boondoggles. It is imperative that accountability is restored to the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) because it is the primary federal statute for investment in our

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nations aviation system. I sit before you to highlight the fact that end runs, similar to the old highway demonstration projects, can be made in the aviation construction arena as well. Aviation projects that are funded by federal sources through end runs can be abuses of the taxpayer's trust because they can be waste of scarce federal resources.

Mr. Chairman, as you know I oppose the construction of a new runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. My reason is that the proposed third runway at Sea-Tac is a boondoggle, it is not needed and its cost is exorbitant. Attached to my written statement are enplanement and arrival/departure statistics, (See Attachments 1 and 2,) In 1990, More than 30 flights per thousand were significantly delayed at Sea-Tac, but the airport has done a tremendous job and the 1994 FAA data shows significant delays of 15 minutes at Sea-Tac at six flights per thousand, (See Attachment 3.) That is less than 6 flights out of every thousand, at a cost of about $1 billion! That pales in comparison to airports in places like New York, Boston, Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami and many more cities. There is no common sense in spending $1 billion dollars because less than one percent of all flights were significantly delayed.

But today, I would like to inform you of the cost of the third runway at Sea-Tac. The airport's sponsor estimates the cost of the third runway to be at least $524 million. [FOOTNOTE 1] It is the most expensive runway in American history and the most expensive one in the 1994 Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Capacity Enhancement Plan [See Attachment 4.] The third runway's price does not include the cost of repairing the state and local roads that will take place when 2,000 trucks per day, six days a week, for almost three years haul about 20 million

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cubic yards, or about seven Seatfle Kingdomes, of dirt from many different locations throughout the Puget Sound region to fill the gully where the runway is supposed to be constructed. (See Attachment 5.)

I believe that all this money, time and effort for a new dependent parallel runway will be wasted because the airport's sponsor plans that the proposed third runway will handle only about 12 percent of aircraft arriving to the south and about 2.5 percent of the aircraft departing to the south. (See Attachment 6.)

Mr. Chairman, you and your Subcommittee should be most concerned with how the airport's sponsor proposes to pay for this boondoggle. In its Master Plan Update, the airport sponsor seeks a $267 million letter of intent using federal entitlement and discretionary AIP funds, extends and increases Passenger Facility Charges (PFC's) by about $ 1 billion, receives federal and state highway and transit dollars, charges the airline companies higher landing and gate fees, imposes higher consumer parking fees, and increases non-airline revenues so that every newspaper and cup of coffee will cost every traveler passing through Sea-Tac more. The airport's sponsor also intends to issue new revenue debt which could reasonably result in an increase in local taxes on which voters in my district will have no voice. [Footnote 2]

Mr. Chairman, as you remember last year, Sea-Tac's sponsor was seeking language to put the proposed third runway on the fast track by seeking expeditious consideration of its pending

letter of intent for $267 million. With your leadership, the proposed third runway was temporarily side-tracked. However, the third runway is a long way from being defeated.

As this Committee well knows, the letter of intent (LOI) program has been mismanaged. See GAO Report No. GAO/RCED-94-100 (feb. 1994). The House and Senate Appropriations committees have acknowledged this squandering of limited resources because last year's Appropriations Conference Report stated, "The Conferees agree with the Senate direction that new letters of intent [LOIs] be awarded only after (1) scheduled LOI payments fall to less than fifty percent of AIP discretionary funds and (2) FAA has improved its ability to estimate airport development projects' impact on systemwide capacity." H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-286, 104th Cong., 1st Sess, at 45.

On page 2 of its February 1994 report, the GAO added that :

FAA did not ensure that letters of intent were used only to significantly enhance systemwide capacity, as required by statute. FAA did not establish criteria defining a "significant" enhancement by which to evaluate and approve letter-of -intent proposals. Nor has the agency, as requested by the Congress in 1987, established goals and performance measures for the program, including a goal for improving systemwide capacity on which to base criteria for letters of intent. ... [W]e found only one case in which [FAA] analyzed how a project funded under a letter of intent would affect the national airport system. FAA also issued letters of intent for some projects that clearly could not significantly enhance systemwide capacity. (Emphasis and brackets added.)

LOIs are the federal government's guarantee to obligate AIP funds on an established schedule. They empower airport sponsors to issue bonds or make loans on an established schedule. They empower airport sponsors to issue bonds or make loans because they now have an expected stream of revenues year after year.

Mr. Chairman, LOIs are nothing more than an end run. Remarkably, they are not subject to authorization or appropriations and the FAA does not consistently follow a defined set of

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investment criteria when approving them. [Footnote 3] To me, LOIs are nothing more than a financial guarantee to finance a multi-year aviation demonstration project. In fact, one could make the argument that LOIs are a more egregious violation of the taxpayers, trust than highway demonstration projects used to be - at least highway projects had to be approved by Congress.

As a guardian of the taxpayer, I submit that Congress should apply the brakes to the FAA's issuance of LOIs. Again, Congress requested that FAA establish performance measurements for the LOI program in 1987. The agency must be held accountable for its seeming failure to take action on this issue. We have waited almost 10 years for the public's money to be safeguarded as it relates to airport construction backed by LOIs. Defined investment criteria, a sound cost/benefit analysis procedure, or some other justifiable performance measure to ensure that LOIs are only issued when projects significantly enhance systemwide capacity are long overdue. I respectfully recommend that the FAA be prohibited from approving any application for a letter of intent until Congress gives an indication otherwise. We need action now. We can not afford to wait another 10 years.

That is not all Mr. Chairman. Sponsors of airports and the FAA have found another end run - Passenger Facility Charges (PFCs).

Congress should also be very concerned with PFCs. They are nothing more than a head tax on just about every member of the American flying public. PFCs were authorized by

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Congress in 1990 and airports charge each passenger $1, $2 or $3 per trip segment up to a maximum of two segments for a one-way trip and four segments for a round trip.

As each of you probably know, airport sponsors decide which projects will be funded by PFCs and then they submit PFC applications to the FAA for approval. The fact is that the FAA never sees a PFC that it does not like. The GAO reported that as of last year, the FAA had approved a whopping 216 of the 217 PFC applications that had been submitted. See GAO Report No. GAO/RCED-95-225 FS (July 1995), p, 14. As far as PFCs are concerned, the FAA is nothing but a rubber stamp.

Before a PFC application is approved federal regulation states that the project must meet one of the following criteria: (1) preserve or enhance the safety, security or capacity of the national airport system; (2) mitigate the impact of noise, or (3) induce competition among the air carriers. Under those regulations as implemented, the FAA has not consistently applied a test of basic economic sense to whether a project is truly needed. The fact is, I have been informed that PFCs have been used to fund the following dubious projects: (1) An extension of current runway for use by large, intercontinental aircraft with the purported justification that it would foster international competition even though there was absolutely no indication of demand or need for such a runway; (2) A people mover to transport travelers between a rental car desk area and the rental car lots; and (3) Construction of a road system underneath an airport's two runways which would primarily relieve congestion from enormous traffic pressure in the city's downtown.

Again, as someone charged with safeguarding taxpayers' money, I have very little doubt that the FAA would look twice at a PFC application that will help finance a new dependent, parallel runway at Sea-Tac even though the airport's sponsor claims that a very small percentage.

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of arrivals and departures will use it and where the airport's flight delays have decreased dramatically over the last several years. A federal agency having the right to approve unilaterally a tax on Americans is one thing, but when that agency is not discharging its responsibility properly it is irresponsible. PFCs are a case of the fox guarding the hen house. There is a reason behind this madness. As AlP appropriations decrease. PFCs increase. See GAO Report No. GAO/RCED-95-225 FS (July 1995). The FAA and sponsors of airports want growth at any cost. I was elected to safeguard the taxpayer's money and since PFCs are being used to aid boondoggles, Congress should hold the FAA accountable. I recommend that Congress consider strongly whether to repeal the authority of the FAA to approve any PFC applications. At the least, Congress should suspend the right of the FAA to approve any new PFCs until Congress can thoroughly examine the issue.

National aviation system capacity and airport congestion are issues critical to the American people. We want to be able to fly safely where we want. We can all agree on that point. Yet, I believe that we have reached the point where we have to say, as a nation, at what price do we to be able to fly when we want. I was elected to limit the size of government, inject common sense and reasonableness into the regulatory process, halt government waste and put more money back into the pockets of taxpayers. The Airport Improvement Program, letters-of-intent & passenger facility charges are each in their own way symbols of the failed status quo. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, the federal government has to do more with less resources. The FAA has not gotten that message yet. Nationwide, the demand for airport.

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construction dollars far exceeds the supply and the federal government should not be slipping its fingers into the wallets of American taxpayers to finance those that do not significantly enhance our nation's aviation capacity.

New technology, like the Global Positioning System, could significantly increase airport capacity obviating the need for new runways and new major airports. The FAA does not consistently make an explicit comparison of the costs and benefits in selecting which projects to fund. The FAA could publish an estimate of how much airport congestion could be reduced by federal financing of a specific airport expansion project. The FAA could be required to formulate a national strategy, including an analysis of our busiest airports, for reducing airport congestion. [Footnote 5] the FAA should be held responsible for devising a federal national strategy for improving and developing airports. We have accomplished that goal on the ground through the National Highway system. We need similar action today in our skies.

The federal government's process and procedures for targeting investment in airport construction are in need of a thorough examination, This review with a new, comprehensive planning process will enhance our international airline competitiveness in moving passengers and freight throughout the global economy. Maximum economic growth will be the result of the wise investment of federal dollars in justifiable airport construction growth and the rejection of the use of taxpayer dollars in airport boondoggles.

As you can see, many transportation programs are in dire need of strengthening so that Congress is investing taxpayers' dollars in only those projects that enhance our aviation system's

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capacity the most. [Footnote 6] Please be assured as a Member of the House Aviation Subcommittee, I will be intricately involved in these airport issues. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and the other Members of the distinguished Subcommittee as we strive to accomplish these tasks.

Finally, there are over 200,000 people in the Ninth District of Washington who have dedicated at least $2 million of their own money to combat the construction of the proposed third runway at Seattle-Tacorna International Airport. I proudly stand with them because Sea-Tac's proposed third runway is the poster child of boondoggles as far as aviation construction is concerned.

I want to thank the distinguished Chairman and all Members of the Subcommittee for exploring these critical issues at this time, and for giving me the opportunity to submit this written testimony to and testify before the Subcommittee on this urgent matter. Thank you.

[Footnote 6] See CRS Report- The Airport Improvement Program: Background and Some options for Using Federal Financial Resources 94-67 E (Jan. 31, 1994)

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