EAA Urges Senators to Support Amendment to Strike User Fees

Members urged to keep contacting their elected officials
EAA is urging members of the Senate Commerce Committee to support an amendment proposed Tuesday that eliminates the $25 “modernization surcharge” on turbine aircraft for filing IFR flight plans that was included in the Lott-Rockefeller bill (S. 1300) earlier this month.

In a letter sent to committee members, EAA President Tom Poberezny wrote, “We are pleased that Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Senator John Sununu (R-NH) filed an amendment to strike the user fee section of the bill. We ask that you support the Nelson-Sununu amendment.”

The primary focus of EAA’s ongoing advocacy efforts has been to strongly oppose the user fees and sharp fuel tax increases proposed in the administration’s FAA reauthorization bill this past February. Those efforts, along with those of other general aviation associations, led to broad, bipartisan opposition in the House of Representatives, where the FAA proposal was pronounced dead on arrival.

This united front has also had an influence in the Senate, evidenced by the Lott-Rockefeller bill excluding user fees as well as a 300 percent increase in fuels taxes for GA piston aircraft. But it included the user fee mechanism for turbines along with more than doubling the jet fuel tax.

“EAA maintains that the national airspace system and specifically the air traffic control system should continue to be financed through a combination of excise taxes and general treasury funds,” Poberezny added. “EAA favors modernizing the air traffic control system but firmly believes that this can be done through the existing, long-standing system of tax-based financing.”

EAA continues to work with Senate and House members to create a workable agreement on FAA reauthorization. We urge our members to contact their elected congressional representatives to let them know the direct impact user fees would have on them, their families, businesses, and communities. For more information, visit www.eaa.org/govt/index.html.

  EAA Aviation Center
  P.O. Box 3086
  Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086

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Phone: 920.426.4800
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