James Oberstar: “I listened again with great attention to the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, who made a very compassionate…”

“I listened again with great attention to the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, who made a very compassionate, or passionate, argument, compassionate for those 20 airports who are going to be windfall beneficiaries. This idea that airports that built the contract towers are rewarded for thinking ahead by this amendment is just not right. I heard another appeal to common sense, but is it common sense to vitiate common law? Common law says you made an agreement, which is a contract. Live by it. That is all we are saying. They built the tower. They received an enormous benefit from the FAA to the tune of an average $350,000 a year in air traffic control services provided by the FAA at that tower. Other airports did not take a flying leap and build a tower and then hope that someday in the future, some future Congress would come back and benefit them. In addition, while these towers may have been indeed built for safety purposes, they were all built with the very clear purpose of economic benefits for the communities. They need not be double-imbursed by having the ability to be compensated for something they did at a time when they knew they would not be compensated for it. These are scarce dollars, AIP dollars, very limited amounts of money. They have to be very carefully managed.”