Congress Stalls Riordan’s Plan for LAX Funds

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s ambitious plan to divert airport revenue to hire more city police officers has stalled amid staunch congressional disapproval.

In fact, rather than making headway in easing federal laws regulating the use of airport funds, Los Angeles faces the prospect of even tougher regulations to come.

A transportation appropriations bill, tentatively scheduled to go to the House floor today, carries an amendment denying all federal transportation funds to cities that use airport funds for other purposes. And, in an indication of its no-compromise mood on the issue, the House last week passed a related bill heightening its oversight of cities that have been allowed to divert airport funds.

The stiff Capitol Hill resistance--combined with a crucial court hearing next week over the city’s tripling of airline landing fees--has stalled the lobbying effort and underscores the difficulties the mayor faces in delivering on his cornerstone campaign promise to beef up the understaffed Los Angeles Police Department by 3,000 officers.

During the campaign, Riordan advocated funding the police expansion by tapping Los Angeles International Airport’s $200-million annual budget. But lately, he seldom has mentioned that proposal in public. And he refused to discuss any long-term funding in the detailed LAPD buildup plan he released last week.

Many officials contend that the expansion cannot be enacted without city tax increases.

Members of the California delegation who are looking for ways to assist Riordan are now focusing their attention on the Clinton Administration’s crime bill, expected to come up for preliminary hearings this week. Several programs in the crime bill might be a source of funds for more city police officers.

Riordan and Police Chief Willie L. Williams are flying today to Washington, and are scheduled Thursday to tell a House committee about their struggle to get more police for Los Angeles.

Riordan Administration officials said they are hopeful about Clinton’s crime bill--which envisions putting 50,000 police on the street nationwide in five years--but said they have not given up on their hopes of obtaining some revenue from LAX. One mayoral aide said Tuesday that the Clinton Administration has sent strong signals that it wants to help the city, one way or another.

“They are looking for ways to help,” said the mayoral aide, who asked not to be identified. “They have not expressed preference for how. The ball is in our court . . . to tell them what we want them to do for us.”

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), a key Washington supporter of Riordan’s quest for more police, has urged White House officials to keep the airport funds diversion issue in mind as the Clinton Administration shapes a legislative package to assist the troubled airline industry.

The package, according to an Administration source, will be largely based on a National Airline Commission report that recommends numerous financial and operational reforms to help the struggling airlines. It recommends against changing the funds diversion policy.

But Berman said he hopes that a legislative compromise can be reached within the package that might provide some maneuvering room on the diversion issue.

But the airline industry is fiercely opposed to tinkering with current regulations that keep airport revenues strictly “on the airport” in virtually all U.S. cities, including Los Angeles.

“This sound policy needs to be enhanced, not changed,” said James Landry, president of the Washington-based Air Transport Assn. “Congress wisely provided a source of revenue, not intending for it to be spent for other causes, noble as they may be. And certainly not from the hide of an industry that is on its knees.”

Alarms about the funds diversion issue were sounded early in Riordan’s mayoral campaign when he advocated leasing the airport to obtain a new city revenue stream. But knowledgeable congressional and industry sources quickly predicted that such a plan would almost certainly encounter rock-hard Capitol Hill opposition. By tradition, lawmakers are loath to dilute their power over where federal money goes.

“I never thought we were going to blithely rewrite this law,” Berman said.

Indeed, today’s expected vote on the transportation subcommittee appropriations bill contains an amendment by Chairman Bob Carr (D-Mich.) that would strip all federal transportation funds from cities that divert airport money to other purposes.

Last week, the House passed the Aviation Infrastructure Investment Act of 1993, which tightened reporting requirements for cities that have obtained special permission to divert airport funds to other uses.

About a dozen U.S. cities have won exemptions to the federal law and are allowed to use some airport revenue, often in the form of fuel taxes, for non-airport applications. These arrangements were grandfathered into modifications of the law in 1982 and 1987.

Because Los Angeles cannot now divert any airport money, the legislative changes proposed this year have no practical effect. But they point up the negative attitude of Congress on the issue--and could stymie future city efforts to draw on LAX funds.

“They are warning shots across our bow,” said the city’s Washington lobbyist, James F. Seeley.

The bleak prospect of changing minds in Washington led city officials to pull back on the lobbying effort.

Several officials also expressed fears that an ambitious legislative effort to obtain airport funds would hurt the city as it fights the airlines in federal court Monday.

“We were asked to put it on hold,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who had been working with Berman on the issue.

About 40 airlines have filed suit to invalidate the city’s tripling this year of the fees it charges for landing at LAX. Many airlines have refused to pay the higher fees. The city has threatened to deny their right to take off and land at the airport.

In the face of opposition in Congress and uncertainty in the courts, the city may find that Clinton’s crime bill is “the most immediate vehicle” for getting more police on the street, Berman said.

In that regard, he said, a primary goal will be to promote a formula for doling out federal funds that benefit the city. Berman said he believes that Los Angeles deserves special consideration because of its geographic expanse and low ratio of police to population.

Bornemeier reported from Washington and Rainey from Los Angeles.

* NEW DEPUTY MAYOR: Riordan names City Hall veteran Robin M. Kramer his top aide for communications. B3