Local Airport Officials Testify Before U.S. Panel

Orange County officials urged Congress on Thursday to establish a national airport noise abatement policy that preserves their authority to set local rules and allows them to maintain existing agreements with commercial airlines.

“The right of airport proprietors to impose reasonable . . . noise control measures must remain intact,” Clarence J. Turner, a Newport Beach city council member, told the aviation subcommittee of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. The panel is expected to propose legislation next year to create a national airport noise policy.

California airport officials, testifying at the hearing along with similar groups from New York and other areas affected by airport noise, endorsed the subcommittee’s efforts but opposed any policy that would undermine noise control agreements already in place.

“The airport operator is in the best position to evaluate the type and nature of restriction necessary to best solve local airport noise problems,” Turner said.

Airport noise has become a hotly debated issue across the country. Anti-noise groups have sprung up around many airports to oppose expansion projects and delay construction with expensive and time-consuming court challenges. As a result, the nation’s air transit system has become increasingly congested, with overcrowding in the skies and delays on the ground.

Local airport authorities in Southern California and other areas have responded to the complaints by negotiating a variety of service agreements and noise-reduction programs with carriers. Industry executives and Department of Transportation officials, however, say the hodgepodge of local rules makes it difficult to manage a national air transit network.

Jan Mittermeier, manager of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, told the panel it would be “inconsistent with the old concepts of fair play” for the federal government to enact laws that voided agreements the airports have reached with carriers operating in their communities.

Mittermeier and others at the hearing criticized a proposed Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that would grant airport authorities the ability to impose a “passenger facility charge” to generate revenue for badly needed local construction projects--but only after the secretary of transportation implemented a national noise policy.

Thomas E. Greer, director of airport services at the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, supported the idea of both a national noise policy and passenger charges.

“But what do you do about the existing (noise-abatement) policies?” he asked. “There are no easy answers.”

One suggestion proposed by executives at major airlines and other industry observers would include phasing out “Stage 2” aircraft--second-generation jets with noisy engines--and permitting carriers to fly only quieter aircraft, Greer said.

“A noise policy based on the complete phase-in of Stage 3 aircraft offers a promising approach,” he said, noting that Burbank Airport has successfully reached an agreement with carriers to exclude the use of Stage 2 planes.

But Greer cautioned that the elimination of Stage 2 planes would not be a cure-all.

Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, reiterated that point, saying: “There are no stealth, noise-free aircraft. People are going to have to realize that.”