Bingaman Blocks Effort To Force Smaller Communities to Pay To Keep Air Service

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, June 12, 2003

Bingaman Blocks Effort To Force Smaller Communities to Pay To Keep Air Service

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today successfully beat back an initiative that would have forced some of New Mexico's communities that take part in the Essential Air Service (EAS) – a federal program that makes possible low-cost reliable air service to smaller communities – to pay to participate in the program.

Created by Congress in 1978, the EAS program was established to ensure that small, mostly rural communities could retain commercial air service after the airline industry was deregulated. Currently, five New Mexico communities take part in the EAS program. Among them are Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Clovis, Hobbs and Silver City.

Under the program, commuter airlines may apply for a subsidy in order to offset the cost to consumers of flying to participating communities. But the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Bill, which the full Senate approved today, would have fundamentally changed the program by requiring that some communities – those within 100 miles of so-called "hub" airports – to share in the cost of the subsidy. Some New Mexico communities would have fallen into that range, even though the "hub" airport would have been located in a neighboring state. In order to protect air service for New Mexico communities in the EAS program, Bingaman today offered an amendment that was approved by the Senate to strike the requirement that they pay a portion of the subsidy.

"This proposal to force communities to pay to take part in the EAS program was wrongheaded. Small communities are already facing depressed economies and declining tax revenues. Requiring them to spend more to keep their air service would have exacerbated the situation," Bingaman said. "I'm pleased my colleagues in the Senate agreed this wasn't fair."

Bingaman also said the new fee would have resulted in the loss of scheduled air service for many rural communities across the country, which is key to attracting new economic development opportunities. "Many rural areas lack access to interstate or even four-lane highways, railroads or broadband telecommunications. Business development in rural areas often hinges on the availability of scheduled air service," Bingaman said.

Communities in 16 states, including New Mexico, would have been affected if the Senate hadn't accepted Bingaman's amendment striking the mandatory cost-sharing requirement. Among those states were Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont.

The EAS Program currently ensures commercial air service to over 100 communities in 34 states, and it supports an additional 33 communities in Alaska. Because of increasing costs and the current financial downturn in the aviation industry, particularly among commuter airlines, about 28 additional communities have been forced into the EAS program since the terrorist attacks in 2001. Despite this, the Bush administration has been leading efforts to whittle away at the program.

Current law limits eligibility for the EAS program to communities more than 70 miles from a major airport. In addition, the amount of the subsidy must be less than $200 per passenger for communities less than 210 miles from a major airport. Those recent requirements are intended to help keep down the cost of the program. But the cost-per-passenger requirement has resulted in about a dozen airports, including the one in Gallup, being eliminated from EAS because their costs exceeded the limit.