Accord Would Keep O.C. Jet Noise Curbs : Airports: Conferees compromise by requiring a phase-out of noisy older aircraft. But John Wayne Airport critics remain outraged by any bill that preempts local control.

Concluding a series of last-minute discussions, House and Senate negotiators agreed Friday to dampen the racket over the skies of the nation’s airports by the turn of the century, requiring the federal government to phase out flights of noisy older aircraft.

The accord, expected to receive final congressional approval today, will allow Los Angeles International Airport, Orange County’s John Wayne Airport and other regional facilities to retain existing local noise controls and possibly to impose new ones.

The conference committee agreement would also allow local airport officials to levy a “head tax” of up to $12 per round trip to pay for expansion or construction projects. The so-called passenger-facility charges are expected to generate up to $1 billion nationally every year for airport improvements.

Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner hailed the compromise bill, saying it “represents the strategic vision this country needs to boost our economy and meet consumer demand in the 1990s and into the 21st Century.”

In Orange County, reaction to the noise-policy agreement was mixed.

The exemptions for airports with existing noise limits “will take care of John Wayne’s problem,” said John Wayne Airport Manager Janice Mittermeier. “As I understand it, everything in our (anti-noise) plan is exempted.”

But Barbara Lichman, a member of the Airport Working Group, the county’s most influential anti-noise organization, was still outraged by passage of any bill that preempts local control.

“We will still fight this every which way we can,” Lichman said. “The fact that this bill exempts John Wayne Airport does not make it more palatable. It’s repulsive and disgusting . . . because it leaves millions of people around this country without any recourse.

“It also eliminates new airport sites, because nobody in their right mind would agree to such sites without local noise restrictions.”

Lichman added that language grandfathering John Wayne’s noise rules is a dangerous way to proceed, since Congress can change its mind at any time.

Also, the 1985 court settlement that resulted in the current John Wayne regulations expires in 2005. “What happens when our agreement runs out?” Lichman asked. “If you want to leave a nice home in this area to your child, forget it.”

Both the noise policy and the passenger charges were key parts of the Administration’s legislative agenda, as outlined last spring in Skinner’s national transportation policy. The compromise, which will be folded into the broad federal budget package scheduled for final action today, brings to close a week of talks between Senate and House negotiators on legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration.

In separate House and Senate reauthorization bills, the conferees ironed out differences on key provisions involving the passenger facility charges and federal airport noise policies.

Under the compromise, the government will be required to develop a federal noise policy that would force down older and noisier Stage 2 aircraft by Dec. 31, 1999. About 2,000 of the nation’s airplanes are classified as Stage 2, which denotes a second-generation plane with engines noisier than more-recently developed Stage 3 planes.

The anti-noise policy would permit the Transportation Department to review--and apparently accept or reject at its discretion--future local restrictions on Stage 3 aircraft.

In recent years, regional airport officials have imposed varying community restrictions governing Stage 2 noise. Those local policies have become a recent source of irritation between federal and local aviation authorities.

By creating a patchwork of local noise policies, federal officials and airline carriers have said such policies make it difficult to manage the national air transit network.

The compromise would allow existing noise ordinances at local airports to remain in place under a grandfather clause included in the legislation. Officials from LAX and John Wayne have lobbied lawmakers not to do away with their noise policies.

The agreement would also allow local officials to impose new restrictions on Stage 2 planes, although it would require them to provide the FAA with 180 days of advance notice. The Transportation Department would not have veto authority over such policies, effectively ending the current jurisdictional dispute caused by the lack of a federal policy.

The agreement would also require that the fleets of the nation’s carriers must be 85% Stage 3 planes by July 1, 1999, and 100% by the end of the century. A provision in the agreement would allow the secretary of transportation to grant carriers that meet the 85% benchmark a waiver that would allow them until 2003 to reach the 100% goal.

Orange County limits the number of takeoffs by noiser jets to 73 per day. Quieter jets, however, raise the number of average daily departures to more than 90, with a high of 140 to 160 per day expected within the next few years.

The county’s noise-based aircraft classifications, however, do not correspond to the FAA’s, so even flights by some of the Stage 3 aircraft--such as the McDonnell Douglas MD-80--are still strictly limited.

As the conferees moved close to an agreement earlier this week, Clifton Moore, executive director of LAX, said he had been told about parts of the deal, but he reserved judgment until he could see the finished product.

“It would seem to be something that would allow us to proceed with our local affairs,” he said.

If that were so, he added, “We can support it.”

The provision of the legislation authorizing passenger facility charges will change existing federal law, which forbids airport officials from collecting a passenger tax to pay for local construction projects.

The proposed legislation would permit airport authorities to collect up to $3 from each person passing through their gates. Carriers would be responsible for collecting the fees and turning them over to local airport authorities. A cap of $12 per round trip would be placed on multiple-stop flights.

Bush Administration officials have lobbied for the passenger fees, saying they are needed to generate money for improvements at many of the nation’s large airports without using tax revenue or the federal aviation trust fund.

The House passed its aviation reauthorization legislation Aug. 2, with provisions for the passenger fees, but not the noise-reduction measures contained in the Senate bill. Current aviation funding will not expire until next year.

Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.), chairman of the Senate aviation subcommittee and a proponent of the federal noise policy, had been an outspoken critic of the passenger charges.

After the idea was proposed in March in the White House’s national transportation policy, Ford argued that the FAA should spend down the estimated $8 billion in the aviation trust fund before imposing new taxes on passengers.

But Ford changed his mind after agreeing with airline groups to link a national noise policy with the passenger facility charge. Airline industry officials have objected to the passenger fee and have pressed federal officials for national noise guidelines to replace the varying of local restrictions.

“The airlines wanted a national noise policy so much, we could agree to this tax,” said Tim Neale, a spokesman with the Airline Transit Assn., a Washington-based industry group.

Another component of the agreement would require the transportation secretary to establish a rule-making procedure for carrier slots at high-density airports by July 1, 1991. The provision is intended to ease restrictions that make it difficult for new airlines to enter certain airports--Kennedy and LaGuardia in New York, O’Hare in Chicago and National Airport in Washington--where existing carriers effectively limit carrier access to airport gates.