GA Groups Join Anti-User Fee Coalition

General aviation trade groups based in the Washington, D.C. area have joined with a disparate group of mostly rural communities, organizations and the volunteer-pilot Air Care Alliance in battling the Bush Administration’s plan to hike fuel taxes and institute a series of user fees to help fund the FAA and the NextGen ATC system. In a conference call with reporters earlier this week, the Alliance for Aviation Across America said that the White House proposal would levy a huge tax hike “on general aviation or the businesses, organizations and farmers and ranchers that use small planes.” A central tenet of the new alliance is to preserve emergency services, disaster relief and business opportunities for small towns and rural areas. “Community airports and the small businesses that use them are critical to our security, our mobility during national emergencies, access to medical care and to our local economies,” the group said.