[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 69 (Wednesday, May 6, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5233-S5234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. SNOWE (for herself and Mr. Bingaman):
  S. 983. A bill to reform the essential air service program, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation.

[[Page S5234]]

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague, Senator 
Bingaman, to introduce the bipartisan Rural Aviation Improvement Act. I 
am proud to join the senior Senator from New Mexico, a steadfast and 
resolute guardian of commercial aviation service to all communities, 
particularly rural areas that would otherwise be deprived of any air 
service.
  It has always been true that reliable air service to our Nation's 
rural areas is not simply a luxury or a convenience. It is an 
imperative. Ask any town manager or mayor of a small community how 
critical aviation is to economic development. All of us in the Senate 
who come from rural states understand the vital role aviation plays in 
the moving of people and goods to and from areas that would otherwise 
face a paucity of transportation options. Quite frankly, I have long 
held serious concerns about the impact deregulation of the airline 
industry has had on small cities and smaller towns in rural areas, like 
those in my home State of Maine. That fact is, since deregulation, many 
of these communities across the country have experienced a decline in 
flights and size of aircraft while seeing an increase in fares. More 
than 300 have lost air service altogether.
  This legislation will serve to improve the long-underfunded Essential 
Air Service program. The additional commitment of resources will 
augment the ability of the program to achieve its desired goals, 
reducing the impact on the general fund while providing small 
communities with a greater degree of certainty when planning future 
improvements or bringing enhanced service to their airports. The bill 
also gives those same communities a greater role in retaining and 
determining the sort of air service which they receive, and assists in 
making that service sustainable.
  Increasingly, the Essential Air Service program has been plagued with 
a decline in the number of airlines willing to provide this critical 
link to the national transportation network. Not only have we lost a 
rash of participants in the program due to wildly fluctuating fuel 
costs and the omnipresent economic downturn, but in addition, a few 
`bad actors' have jeopardized commercial aviation for entire regions by 
submitting low-ball contracts to the Department of Transportation and 
then reneging on their commitment to the extent and quality of their 
service. Our bill will not only establish a system of minimum 
requirements for contracts to protect these small cities that rely on 
EAS, but it will also extend those contracts to 4 years from the 
current 2. This gives a heightened degree of stability in terms of air 
service, rather than having communities negotiating new contracts or 
receiving service from entirely new carriers every 18 months. Actively 
encouraging communities to get involved in the process, and build 
relationships with the carriers who serve them, can only bolster the 
quality of the program.
  In the final analysis, everyone benefits when our Nation is at its 
strongest economically. Most importantly in this case, greater 
prosperity everywhere will, in the long run, mean more passengers for 
the airlines. We cannot afford to ignore rural America--which contains 
nearly a quarter of the population--as we move forward with aviation 
policy and the next generation air traffic system. Therefore, it is 
very much in our national interests to ensure that every region has 
reasonable, consistent access to commercial air service. That is why I 
strongly believe the federal government has an obligation to fulfill 
the commitment it made to these communities when Congress deregulated 
the airlines in 1978; to safeguard their ability to continue commercial 
air service.
                                 ______