Inhofe, King Further Champion GA Issues with Plane Act

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) is continuing his long-running campaign to boost pilot rights and address issues affecting the U.S. general aviation (GA) community. Together with Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), he has jointly introduced new legislation, the Promoting the Launch of Aviation’s Next Era (Plane) Act of 2019.

Announced during the most recent Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture, the Plane Act, S.2198, is designed to foster airport infrastructure, strengthen pilot legal protections, and address a host of other issues. And the bill dares to take on an issue that Congress has shown little appetite to address for well more than a decade: fuel fraud.

“The Plane Act truly sets a positive path for the future of the aviation industry,” Inhofe said.

“For rural Maine communities, general aviation is a vital lifeline—both literally and economically,” King added. “This legislation would make important investments in this pillar of our nation’s transportation system and would cut through bureaucratic burdens.”

Notably, the bill would roll back the “fuel fraud” tax measure imposed in 2005 as an attempt to discourage truck drivers from purchasing aviation jet fuel to avoid paying the 2.5-cent per gallon higher tax levy on highway diesel fuel.

That law requires noncommercial jet fuel to be treated as highway diesel fuel: taxed at the same rate with the dollars deposited into the highway trust fund until approved aviation vendors demonstrate that the fuel was used for aviation purposes and seek refunds.

The net result is a significant amount of aviation revenue has been lost to the trust fund as many vendors have not sought the refunds, finding the process cumbersome or too bureaucratic. In 2016, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the aviation trust fund had lost between $1 billion and $2 billion “or more” in tax revenue, and fuel vendors have overpaid by as much as $230 million in tax revenue as a result of the then decade-old fuel-fraud law.

While the aviation system has lost revenue, efforts to reverse the law had been difficult, since it created a windfall for the highway trust fund. The National Air Transportation Association (NATA), which has worked for years behind the scenes to convince lawmakers to reverse the law, praised the language in the Plane Act to lift the tax. “[It] would undo an ill-founded policy that has taken money away from the aviation system for over a decade,” said NATA president Gary Dempsey. “This legislation will enable NATA’s members to keep fuel prices competitive, and ensure the tax revenue from jet fuel sales supports aviation system users.”

Infrastructure Investment

Along with fuel fraud, an entire section of the bill is named “Forward-Looking Investment in General Aviation, Hangars, and Tarmacs Act” and dedicated to expanding and protecting resources for general aviation airports. This can be particularly difficult for smaller facilities without the means or understanding of how to access funding.

Provisions in this section would establish a five-year public-private partnership pilot program to attract private sector investment to general aviation airports; reduce local match requirements for certain non-primary airport projects; ensure that carryover funds designed for non-primary airports are dedicated for that use; designate qualified general aviation airports and develop other general aviation airports as disaster relief airports; and increase availability of funding for automated weather observing systems (AWOS).

The provisions were particularly welcomed by the National Association of State Aviation Officials (NASAO), which represents state agencies that rely on federal funding support of their local projects. “Our members were especially encouraged to see continued reform made to the Non-Primary Entitlement (NPE) program. By easing the financial onus on states and requiring NPE funds to stay in the category, investment in general aviation airports is prioritized and protected,” said Shelly Simi, president and CEO of NASAO.

Simi further stressed the importance of supporting the general aviation industry. “The general aviation industry, supporting 1.1 million jobs and generating an economic output of $219 billion in the U.S., is critical to the economic health of the nation,” she added.

“Our nation relies on a network of more than 5,000 airports that support critical services, agriculture, and economic activity in communities across the country,” agreed Selena Shilad, executive director of the Alliance for Aviation Across America, saying the Plane Act “would support our aviation infrastructure and future aviators.”

Pilot Protections

Paramount in the Plane Act are the numerous protections aimed at the pilot. This is the third in a series of comprehensive bills that Inhofe has authored on pilots since he faced his own entanglement with the FAA after landing on a closed runway in Texas in October 2010.

As such, the Plane Act’s first title is named “Fairness to Pilots,” with sections that would address the ability to appeal to federal district court, the NTSB authority to review an airman medical certificate denial, the ability for an airman to voluntarily surrender a medical certificate, the ability to reapply for a certificate without an unnecessary wait period, and an extension of FAA designee due process protections, among other aspects.

In addition, the legislation would address rulemaking by requiring the FAA to consider the number of certificate holders and small businesses affected by or requesting the proposed rulemaking, requiring a timely notice on each petition filed in the rulemaking process. Further, FAA designees would be afforded civil liability protections provided to FAA employees.

Other sections are designed to improve repair station protections, including the restoration of the ability of a repair station to voluntarily surrender certificates. It also extends the FAA’s ability to keep out bad actors.

Another area of the bill includes a number of provisions designed to foster the development of air traffic controllers, including the ability for the FAA’s academy to remain open in times of a government shutdown.

Unsurprisingly, the bill immediately gained support from a spectrum of aviation organizations, 13 of which wrote a letter saying the bill “sets the stage for the future of general aviation by empowering the voices of pilots, investing in airport infrastructure, and ensuring more opportunities for a trained aviation workforce."

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association president Mark Baker praised the senators for introducing the Plane Act. “Sen. Inhofe has been a longtime supporter of general aviation and we thank him and Senator King for their relentless work.”

The path forward for the Plane Act is yet unclear, particularly since there will not be a catch-all FAA reauthorization bill in the offing for several more years. But Inhofe over the years has been a skilled politician, able to shepherd narrowly focused bills even without over-arching must-pass legislation as a vehicle.

His doggedness spans decades, particularly on general aviation issues; in the early 1990s, he spearheaded a procedural maneuver that broke the logjam against product liability reform legislation and cleared the way for the hallmark General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994.