Wednesday, May 15, 2013

FAA to fund tower through September

Airport files suit in federal district court


By KATHERINE WUTZ
Express Staff Writer

    The Federal Aviation Administration announced on Friday that it would use part of the $253 million granted to it by Congress earlier this month to keep air traffic control towers open—including the one at Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey.
    The Department of Transportation issued a short news release on Friday stating that the “Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013” would allow the FAA to keep the 149 “low activity” contract towers originally slated for closure in June open through September.
    The act was originally passed on April 26 and provided the FAA with $253 million that would enable them to cut air traffic controller furloughs short and fund air traffic control towers through the end of fiscal year 2013.
    However, the legislation lacked specific language directing the FAA to use that money to fund 149 towers that are operated under contract and were slated for closure in June. More than 100 members of Congress and a coalition of 70 city mayors—including Hailey Mayor Fritz Haemmerle—sent letters to the FAA directing them to use that money as was intended by Congress.
    The tower at Friedman Memorial Airport will now be fully funded by the FAA through Sept. 30. The airport will not have to spend the nearly $170,000 approved by the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority last week to keep the tower open through the summer.
    Meanwhile, the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority has joined 40 other airports and the American Association of Airport Executives in filing for a motion for stay. An airport staff report given to the Airport Authority on May 7 states that the purpose of the motion was to “encourage” the court to make a decision on a case that challenges the agency’s decision to close federal air traffic control towers.
    A summary prepared by Denver-based aviation attorney Peter Kirsch of Kaplan, Kirsch & Rockwell states that a brief was filed on Monday, May 6. All litigation regarding the closure of the towers has been consolidated under the case name Spokane Airport Board v. Huerta and will be heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
    Kirsh said in his summary that the petitioners argue that the administrative record prepared by the FAA used to justify closing the towers—a compilation of all of the documents and information used to reach the decision—was “sloppy, perfunctory, inconsistent and filled with errors.”
    “It is clear that the FAA did little or no analysis before deciding to close these towers,” Kirsch wrote.
    Kirsch said the petitioners are also arguing that the FAA did not consider the safety implications of closing the towers before making the decision, at least not to the extent that federal law requires.
    “The FAA did not even begin any safety analysis until after it had made the closure decision,” Kirsch wrote. “The agency has not even started analysis on an airport-by-airport basis.”
    Kirsh further argues that the FAA ignored its own policies in not doing a cost-benefit analysis or airport-specific evaluation of the impact on aircraft operations before making the decision to close the towers, violated federal law by not considering environmental impacts of the decision and “arbitrarily” ordered tower closures, ignoring even its own newly created criteria.
    A hearing is scheduled for June 5 in Pasadena, Calif.
Kate Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.