Congress Urged to Keep Local Control in Airport Noise Plan

Southern California airport 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 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.

The California airport officials, testifying at the hearing with similar groups from New York and other areas, endorsed the subcommittee’s efforts but said they oppose any policy that would undermine local noise control agreements already in place.

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 to delay new construction with expensive and time-consuming court challenges. The nation’s air transit system, meantime, 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 service agreements and noise reduction programs with carriers. Industry executives and U.S. 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 Thursday that it would be “inconsistent with the old concepts of fair play” for the federal government to enact laws that void agreements airports have struck with carriers operating in their communities.

One suggestion proposed by executives at major airlines and other industry observers would include phasing out “Stage 2” second-generation jets with noisy engines and permitting carriers to fly only quieter aircraft, said Thomas E. Greer, director of airport services at the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.