Rep. Mineta Criticizes Use of Aviation Trust : Administration, Congress Panels Held Unwilling to Spend Funds for Airway System Improvements

The government’s handling of a federal trust fund set up to aid the nation’s aviation system was severely criticized at a House hearing called Tuesday to consider whether the fund, which expires on Sept. 30, should be reauthorized.

Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation subcommittee on aviation, criticized Reagan Administration handling of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and accused congressional appropriations panels of being unwilling to approve expenditures from the trust.

As a result, Mineta said, “The cutbacks in funding have delayed implementation of the Federal Aviation Administration’s plans for increasing the capacity of the (air travel) system.”

Since its creation in 1970, the trust fund has dispensed about $25.1 billion to support federal programs for the construction, improvement and operation of the nation’s aviation system. Trust fund money comes from a variety of taxes on aviation users, including an 8% levy on domestic airline tickets and a fuel tax on general aviation.

Growing Concerns

But record numbers of air travelers and growing concerns about airport congestion and flight delays have renewed a longstanding controversy over how to disburse money from the fund, which will collect an estimated $3 billion this year from airline passengers and other aviation users.

Critics of the current spending schedule maintain that artificial restraints imposed on the fund have created a $5.6-billion surplus that should be spent on programs to improve the nation’s airports and modernize an increasingly strained air traffic control system.

Mineta said action ensuring that the trust fund money will be disbursed “should be done both as a matter of fairness to the users and to develop the efficiency and safety of our aviation system.”

Since the fund was created 17 years ago, the number of air travelers has increased from 170 million to 415 million in 1986. And, since 1982, the trust fund has taken in more revenues than have been spent, more than doubling its surplus.

Reserving of Funds Alleged

Mineta and others have accused the Reagan Administration of seeking to reserve trust fund money to reduce estimates of the government’s overall budget deficit.

In testimony before the subcommittee, Jim Burnley, deputy secretary of transportation, defended the Administration’s handling of the trust fund, which is managed by the Transportation Department, and the current balance in the account.

Burnley said the surplus exists for two key reasons. First, he said, Congress has appropriated $943 million less than the Reagan Administration requested for a massive plan to modernize the air traffic system.

Second, he said, “an unjustifiably low proportion” of the FAA’s past operational expenses has been authorized from the fund. The Transportation Department has proposed that the fund be used to pay 85%, or about $2.4 billion, of the FAA’s operating budget in fiscal 1988, contrasted with $1.36 billion for fiscal 1987, which began Oct. 1.

“It’s time to correct both of these mistakes,” Burnley said.

Surplus Cut Predicted

The Administration predicts that increasing use of trust fund money for FAA operations and for other trust fund programs would reduce the surplus from $5.6 billion to $4.3 billion by the end of fiscal 1989.

But House members are taking their own action. Mineta and other congressmen, including Public Works and Transportation Committee Chairman James J. Howard (D-N.J.), Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt (R-Ark.) and Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), introduced legislation last month to remove the trust fund from the normal budget process and exempt it from across-the-board spending cuts under the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law.