Jeff Bingaman: “I wish today to join with my colleague, Senator Snowe to introduce the bipartisan Rural Aviation Improvement Act.…”

“I wish today to join with my colleague, Senator Snowe to introduce the bipartisan Rural Aviation Improvement Act. Senator Snowe has been a longtime champion of commercial air service in rural areas, and I applaud her continued leadership on this important legislation. One of the goals of our bill is to preserve and improve the Essential Air Service Program. Congress established the Essential Air Service Program in 1978 to ensure that communities that had commercial air service before airline deregulation would continue to receive scheduled service. The Essential Air Service Program currently ensures commercial air service to over 100 communities in 35 States. EAS supports an additional 39 communities in Alaska. Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all. I believe our bill makes a number of important improvements to EAS to ensure rural communities continue to have the commercial air service that is so vital to their futures. Our bill also extends through 2011 the Department of Transportation's authority to provide grants to cities under the Small Community Air Service Development Program, which was first established in 2000.”