Paul Coverdell: “this amendment would be among those that the sponsors of S. 1575 would oppose. I want to first acknowledge that the…”

“this amendment would be among those that the sponsors of S. 1575 would oppose. I want to first acknowledge that the Senator from Connecticut in offering his amendment, which is prospective, offered his support of the effort of the sponsors to redesignate Washington National as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and that he would vote for this redesignation even though he had differences. The differences were so pronounced I can remember them, and I was a long way from the Senate at that time. I really believe the nature of the amendment that has just been described by the minority leader is basically a disagreement of redesignation and not so much one of the philosophical issue over local control. Of course, it isn't the Alexandria airport. It is the National Airport. Cities are constitutional instruments of States. The Governor of the State of Virginia has endorsed the redesignation of the airport which is an appropriate governing local facility. But, again, we could argue this forever. The level of Federal Government control of operations at Washington National is without parallel in the United States. The legislation that authorized limited local authority over Washington National contains congressional directives--appropriate landing fees, employee bargaining rights.…”