James Oberstar: “I had two concerns about the agreement that came from the two cities. The first was safety. Years ago, I held hearings…”

“I had two concerns about the agreement that came from the two cities. The first was safety. Years ago, I held hearings when I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee on Safety at Love Field, between Love Field and Dallas. There are only 2 miles of air space in the approach and departure patterns of those two airports. I was concerned that removing the limitations on operations at Love Field would create greater safety concerns than they did at the time. Since then, the FAA has fixed the safety issue with an innovative departure and arrival arrangement that will assure safety, provided there is no increase in operations. That leads us to the second issue, and that is competition. The agreement limits the number of gates to 20. That is something that local citizens are concerned about, noise, safety, congestion. Congress has a right to act on safety and on noise and to limit operations in the interests of safety and of noise, without infringing upon the antitrust issue. In fact, the language that we have before us is an improvement over the agreement of the two cities that in fact would have had antitrust implications. So the antitrust exemption has been removed, but the bill directs action and closing of gates, which is an authority Congress has, in the interest of safety and congestion.”