[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 5, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2010-S2012]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. INOUYE:
  S. 322. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt 
certain sightseeing flights from taxes on air transportation; to the 
Committee on Finance.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill that would 
amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt certain sightseeing 
flights from the air transportation excise tax. A clarifying amendment 
to the tax code is needed due to a problem that exists in the 
application of the excise tax.
  In 1986, the Internal Revenue Services, IRS, issued a Private Letter 
Ruling in which it exempted one Hawaii-based air tour operator from 
paying the air passenger transportation excise tax, but has not applied 
equal treatment to other similarly situated aerial sightseeing tour 
operators. It is my belief that the IRS should be consistent in its 
application of this excise tax.
  Under current law, a variety of excise taxes on air transportation 
are imposed to finance the Airport and Airway Trust Funds program that 
is administered by the Federal Aviation Administration. For example, an 
air passenger transportation excise tax is imposed on users of our 
nation's airports and airways. The Congress intended that the tax be 
levied on passengers traveling on scheduled commercial airlines. In 
addition, for the most part, the tax is imposed on each flight segment.
  The Congress did not intend to have the tax applied to air tour 
operators, who utilize our system of airways differently. Our national 
transportation system receives little or no benefit from aerial 
sightseeing operations. Air tour operations are not scheduled 
commercial airlines. They are for entertainment purposes and are 
circular, in that they begin and end at the same destination point.
  Hawaii is among a small handful of States where our citizens can 
enjoy aerial tours of sights that are remote or difficult to reach by 
land. Aerial sightseeing tours are also enjoyed in Alaska, California, 
Washington, Arizona, and even New York City. The imposition of the air 
transportation excise tax on aerial sightseeing flights will 
significantly raise the consumer price on air tours. Doing so will 
cause many small aerial sightseeing tour operators, especially in my 
home state, to lose customers. Many of these small companies have 
struggled to stay in business after incurring significant losses in the 
months following September 11, 2001, when our government imposed flight 
restrictions across the nation. Those flight restrictions prevented 
many flight operations in all segments of the general aviation industry 
for many months into early 2002.
  Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support my bill, which would 
amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt certain sightseeing 
trips from the air transportation excise tax. Under my bill, air tour 
operations would still be subject to the aviation fuel excise tax.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of my bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                 S. 322

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. CERTAIN SIGHTSEEING FLIGHTS EXEMPT FROM TAXES ON 
                   AIR TRANSPORTATION.

       (a) In General.--Section 4281 of the Internal Revenue Code 
     of 1986 (relating to small aircraft on nonestablished lines) 
     is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: 
     ``For purposes of this section, an aircraft shall not be 
     considered as operated on an established line if such 
     aircraft is operated on a flight the sole purpose of which is 
     sightseeing.''.
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by this section 
     shall apply with respect to transportation beginning on or 
     after the date of the enactment of this Act, but shall not 
     apply to any amount paid before such date.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today I rise, along with Senator Breaux 
to introduce a bill to establish the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area 
in Louisiana. This legislation has particularly special meaning to 
those of us from Louisiana because of the importance of the cultural 
and natural resources of the Atchafalaya region to the Nation.

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  This legislation, reported by the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee and unanimously passed by the full Senate during the 107th 
Congress, would establish a framework to help protect, conserve, and 
promote these unique natural, cultural, historical, and recreational 
resources of the region.
  Specifically, the legislation would establish a National Heritage 
Area in Louisiana that encompasses thirteen parishes in and around the 
Atchafalaya Basin swamp, America's largest river swamp. The heritage 
area in south-central Louisiana stretches from Concordia parish to the 
north, where the Mississippi River begins to partially flow into the 
Atchafalaya River, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. The 
thirteen parishes are: St. Mary, Iberia, St. Martin, St. Landry, 
Avoyelles, Pointe Coupee, Iberville, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafayette, 
West Baton Rouge, Concordia, and East Baton Rouge. This boundary is the 
same area covered by the existing Atchafalaya Trace State Heritage 
Area.
  This measure will appoint the existing Atchafalaya Trace Commission 
as the federally recognized ``local coordinating entity.'' The 
commission is composed of thirteen members with one representative 
appointed by each parish in the heritage area. Both the Atchafalaya 
Trace Commission and the Atchafalaya Trace State Heritage Area were 
created by the Louisiana Legislature a number of years ago. The 
Atchafalaya Trace State Heritage Area program currently receives some 
State funding, and already has staff working at the Louisiana 
Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, DCRT, under Lieutenant 
Governor Kathleen Blanco. State funds were used to create the 
management plan for the heritage area, which followed ``feasibility 
analysis'' guidelines as recommended by the National Park Service. 
Therefore, the recently-completed management plan need only be 
submitted to the Secretary of the Interior for approval as this 
legislation would recognize an existing local coordinating entity that 
will oversee the implementation of this plan. We are very proud that 
this state heritage area has already completed the complicated planning 
process, with participation of local National Park Service 
representatives, while using a standard of planning quality equal to 
that of existing national heritage areas. All at no cost to the Federal 
Government.
  Please let me also emphasize that this legislation protects existing 
private property rights. It will not interfere with local land use 
ordinances or regulations, as it is specifically prohibited from doing 
so. Nor does this legislation grant any powers of real property 
acquisition to the local coordinating entity or heritage area program. 
In addition, the legislation does not impose any environmental rule or 
process or cause any change in Federal environmental quality standards 
different from those already in effect.
  Heritage areas are based on cooperation and collaboration at all 
levels. This legislation remains true to the core concept behind 
heritage areas. The heritage area concept has been used successfully in 
various parts of our Nation to promote historic preservation, natural 
and cultural resource protection, heritage tourism and sustainable 
economic revitalization for both urban and rural areas. Heritage areas 
provide a flexible framework for government agencies, private 
organizations and businesses and landowners to work together on a 
coordinated regional basis. The Atchafalaya National Heritage Area will 
join the Cane River National Heritage Area to become the second 
National Heritage Area in Louisiana, ultimately joining the 23 existing 
National Heritage Areas around the Nation.
  The initiative to develop the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area is 
an outgrowth of a grassroots effort to achieve multiple goals of this 
region. Most important among these is providing opportunities for the 
future, while at the same time not losing anything that makes this 
place so special. Residents from all over the region, local tourism 
agencies, State agencies such as the DCRT and the Department of Natural 
Resources, the State legislature, Federal agencies including the 
National Park Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, parish 
governments, conservation and preservation groups, local businesses and 
local landowners have all participated in this endeavor to make it the 
strong initiative it is today. These groups have been very supportive 
of the heritage area effort, and as time moves on, the heritage area 
will continue to involve more and more of the area's most important 
resource, its people.
  I would also like to give you a brief overview of the resources that 
make this place significant to the entire country. Not only is it 
important to our Nation's history, but it is also critical to 
understanding America's future. The name of the place itself, 
Atchafalaya, comes from the American Indians and means ``long river.'' 
This name signifies the first settlers of the region, descendants of 
whom still live there today.
  Other words come to mind in describing the Atchafalaya: mysterious, 
dynamic, multi-cultural, enchanting, bountiful, threatened and 
undiscovered. This region is one of the most complex and least 
understood places in Louisiana and the Nation. Yet, the stories of the 
Atchafalaya Heritage Area are emblematic of the broader American 
experience. Here there are opportunities to understand and witness the 
complicated, sometimes harmonious, sometimes adversarial interplay 
between nature and culture. The history of the United States has 
been shaped by the complex dance of its people working with, against, 
and for, nature. Within the Atchafalaya a penchant for adventure, 
adaptation, ingenuity, and exploitation has created a cultural legacy 
unlike anywhere else in the world.

  The heart of the heritage area is the Atchafalaya Basin. It is the 
largest river swamp in the United States, larger than the more widely 
known Everglades or Okefenokee Swamp. The Atchafalaya is characterized 
by a maze of streams, and at one time was thickly forested with old-
growth cypress and tupelo trees. The Basin provides outstanding habitat 
for a remarkably diverse array of wildlife, including the endangered 
American bald eagle and Louisiana black bear. The region's unique 
ecology teems with life. More than 85 species of fish; crustaceans, 
such as crawfish; wildlife, including alligators; an astonishing array 
of well over 200 species of birds, from waterfowl to songbirds; forest-
dwelling mammals such as deer, squirrel, beaver and other commercially 
important furbearers all make their home here. Bottomland hardwood-
dependent bird species breed here in some of the highest densities ever 
recorded in annual North American Breeding Bird Surveys. The Basin also 
forms part of the Mississippi Valley Flyway for migratory waterfowl and 
is a major wintering ground for thousands of these geese and ducks. In 
general, the Atchafalaya Basin has a significant proportion of North 
America's breeding wading birds, such as herons, egrets, ibises, and 
spoonbills. Some of the largest flocks of Wood Storks in North America 
summer here, and the southern part of the Basin has a healthy 
population of Bald Eagles nesting every winter.
  The region's dynamic system of waterways, geology, and massive 
earthen guide levees reveals a landscape that is at once fragile and 
awesome. The geology and natural systems of the Atchafalaya Heritage 
Area have fueled the economy of the region for centuries. For decades 
the harvest of cypress, cotton, sugar cane, crawfish, salt, oil, gas, 
and Spanish moss, have been important sources of income for the 
region's residents. The crawfish industry has been particularly 
important to the lives of Atchafalaya residents and Louisiana has 
become the largest crawfish producer in the United States. Sport 
fishing and other forms of commercial fishing are important here, too, 
but unfortunately, natural resource extraction and a changing 
environment have drastically depleted many of these resources and 
forced residents to find new ways to make a living.
  Over the past century, the Atchafalaya Basin has become a study of 
man's monumental effort to control nature. After the catastrophic 
Mississippi River flood of 1927 left thousands dead and millions 
displaced, the U.S. Congress decreed that the U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers should develop an intricate system of levees to

[[Page S2012]]

protect human settlements, particularly New Orleans. Today, the 
Mississippi River is caged within the walls of earthen and concrete 
levees and manipulated with a complex system of locks, barrages and 
floodgates. The Atchafalaya River runs parallel to the Mississippi and 
through the center of the Basin. In times of flooding the river basin 
serves as the key floodway in controlling floodwaters headed for the 
large population centers of Baton Rouge and New Orleans by diverting 
water from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. This system was 
sorely tested in 1973 when floodwaters threatened to break through the 
floodgates and permanently divert the Mississippi River into the 
Atchafalaya. However, after this massive flood event, new land started 
forming off the coast. These new land formations make up the 
Atchafalaya Delta, and is the only significant area of new land being 
built in the United States. These vast amounts of Mississippi River 
sediment are also rapidly filling in the Basin itself, raising the 
level of land in certain areas of the basin and filling in lakes and 
waterways. And to demonstrate just how complex this ecosystem is, one 
only needs to realize that just to the East of the Delta, Terrebonne 
parish, also in the heritage area, is experiencing some of the most 
significant coastal land loss in the country.
  Over the centuries, the ever-changing natural environment has shaped 
the lives of the people living in the Basin. Residents have profited 
from and been imperiled by nature. The popular cultural identity of the 
region is strongly associated with the Cajuns, descendants of the 
French-speaking Acadians who settled in south Louisiana after being 
deported by the British from Nova Scotia, formerly known as Acadia. 
Twenty-five hundred to three thousand exiled Acadians repatriated in 
Louisiana where they proceeded to re-establish their former society. 
Today, in spite of complex social, cultural, and demographic 
transformations, Cajuns maintain a sense of group identity and continue 
to display a distinctive set of cultural expressions nearly two-
hundred-and-fifty years after their exile from Acadia. Cajun culture 
has become increasingly popular outside of Louisiana. Culinary 
specialties adapted from France and Acadia such as etouffee, boudin, 
andouille, crepes, beignets and sauces thickened with roux, delight 
food lovers well beyond Louisiana's borders. Cajun music has also 
``gone mainstream'' with its blend of French folk songs and ballads and 
instrumental dance music, and more recently popular country, rhythm-
and-blues, and rock music influences. While the growing interest in 
Cajun culture has raised appreciation for its unique traditions, many 
of the region's residents are concerned about the growing 
commercialization and stereotyping that threatens to diminish the 
authentic Cajun ways of life.
  While the Atchafalaya Heritage Area may be well known for its Cajun 
culture, there is an astonishing array of other cultures within these 
parishes. Outside of New Orleans, the Atchafalaya Heritage Area is the 
most racially and ethnically complex region of Louisiana, and has been 
so for many years. A long legacy of multiculturalism presents 
interesting opportunities to examine how so many distinct cultures have 
survived in relative harmony. There may be interesting lessons to learn 
from here as our Nation becomes increasingly heterogeneous. The 
cultural complexity of this region has created a rich tapestry of 
history and traditions, evidenced by the architecture, music, language, 
food and festivals unlike any place else. Ethnic groups of the 
Atchafalaya include: African-Americans, Black Creoles, Asians, Chinese, 
Filipinos, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Cajuns, Spanish Islenos, Italians, 
Scotch-Irish, and American Indian tribes such as the Attakapa, 
Chitimacha, Coushatta, Houma, Opelousa and Tunica-Biloxi.
  This heritage area has a wealth of existing cultural, historic, 
natural, scenic, recreational and visitor resources on which to build. 
Scenic resources include numerous State Wildlife Management Areas and 
National Wildlife Refuges, as well as ten designated state scenic 
byways that fall partially or entirely within the heritage area. The 
Office of State Parks operates three historic sites in the heritage 
area, and numerous historic districts and buildings can be found in the 
region. There are also nine Main Street communities in the heritage 
area. Outdoor recreational resources include two State Parks and a 
multitude of waterways and bayous. Hunting, fishing, boating, and 
canoeing, and more recently birdwatching and cycling, are popular ways 
to experience the region. Various visitor attractions, interpretive 
centers and visitor information centers exist to help residents and 
tourists alike better understand and navigate many of the resources in 
the heritage area. Major roads link the heritage area's central visitor 
entrance points and large population centers, especially New Orleans. 
Much of the hospitality industry servicing the Atchafalaya exists 
around the larger cities of Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houma. However, 
more and more bed and breakfasts and heritage accommodations, such as 
houseboat rentals, are becoming more numerous in the smaller towns and 
rural areas.
  These are just some of the examples of the richness and significance 
of this region. This legislation will assist communities throughout 
this heritage area who are committed to the conservation and 
appropriate development of these assets. Furthermore, this legislation 
will bring a level of prestige and national and international 
recognition that this most special of places certainly deserves.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the 
Record.
                                 ______