El Toro Joint-Use Study Called Case ‘of Self-Dealing’

Local officials Thursday questioned the objectivity of a federal study to open the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to civilian cargo planes following revelations that a lobbyist for Federal Express helped prompt the review.

“The whole thing smells worse than two pounds of limburger cheese,” said James McConnell, a lobbyist for Orange County in Washington. He called steps leading up to the study a “gross example of self-dealing.”

The Times reported Wednesday that Rep. Robert Carr (D-Mich.) was asked by a Federal Express lobbyist to sponsor a congressional measure approved last December that requires the Federal Aviation Administration to study possible civilian use of El Toro and two other military airfields. Carr’s measure requires completion of the El Toro study by March 31.

“I am looking forward to the study because they will realize that joint use of El Toro is incompatible with our military mission,” said Col. Jack Wagner. “But I am concerned based on what I read about the possible objectivity of this study.”

‘No Objections’

Fred Smith, chief executive officer of Federal Express, said the firm did not directly ask Washington lobbyist Cliff Madison to approach Carr but had “no objections” to his action.

“We’re delighted that Madison is promoting this, but he wasn’t specifically asked to do that,” Smith said. “He certainly knows that is an interest of ours.”

Federal Express, the nation’s largest small-package airline, has many clients in Orange County who would benefit if the firm could fly out of El Toro instead of trucking parcels to Los Angeles and Ontario international airports, as the company now must do, Smith said.

Cargo carriers do not serve John Wayne Airport because of strict limits on airline flights, and a nighttime noise curfew.

Federal Express is running out of space at Los Angeles Airport and is seeking a new lease there that would give the company a larger facility, Smith and airport officials say.

For years, Federal Express has pressed the federal government to open up military airfields to carriers belonging to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet--a kind of reserve National Guard service provided by some private U.S. air carriers, including his firm, Smith said. “We have not requested in any way that this be exclusive to Federal Express,” Smith said. In a January interview with The Times, FAA Administrator T. Allan McArtor--who left a position last summer as a vice president of Federal Express to head the FAA--said that use of El Toro and other military airfields by civilian cargo planes would help relieve a national shortage of “runway space.”

Smith said he has met with McArtor and previous FAA chiefs, asking that they open up other military airfields in California and nationwide. He said he most recently wrote a letter to McArtor on the subject last November.

“I intend to dog him as much as possible on this,” Smith said.

Several critics of the move to open the 6,200-acre El Toro air base to civilian use questioned the propriety of Federal Express lobbying one of its former executives.

“How can the FAA staff do an objective study when all of these shenanigans are going on behind them?” McConnell said. “What are they going to do--write a report they know their boss won’t like?”

Jim Jannette, a spokesman for McArtor, denied any impropriety in the case.

Carr, a member of the House Transportation Appropriations subcommittee, said he would have acted on his own to sponsor the congressional measure even if Madison had not approached him. He said he has advocated joint use of military bases since the 1970s, when he was a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Madison said Thursday that he had talked with Carr “in a general way on studying the joint-use issue, but I did not write the (measure’s) language.”

Federal Express had not asked him to approach Carr, he said. He acknowledged that his wife, Nancy Madison, was a campaign contributor to Carr. Federal records show she gave the Michigan congressman $700 on June 22, 1987.

A previous FAA study of El Toro in 1983 did not specifically rule out joint use but cited several obstacles. The Marine Corps claimed that joint use would place civilians too close to fuel, bombs, ammunition and security-sensitive defense operations.

Pressure to find an alternate regional airport to supplement John Wayne Airport and Los Angeles International Airport has been building for years.

Newport Beach wants to restrict growth of John Wayne because of traffic congestion and jet noise over the city.

For the same reasons, Irvine, which borders El Toro, wants no more flights there.