Senator Clinton Urges FAA to Drop Consideration of Ocean Routing

Chevalier, Allen & Lichman, LLP represents, and submitted comments on behalf of, several entities affected by the FAA’s proposed redesign of the airspace over the New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia metropolitan area, including the County of Delaware, Pennsylvania.  The following article was provided courtesy of The Airport Noise Report (www.airportnoisereport.com):

Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has urged Federal Aviation Administrator Marion Blakely to drop consideration of the Ocean Routing Alternative, developed by the New Jersey Coalition Against Aircraft Noise (NJCAAN), in its proposed redesign of the airspace over New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia metropolitan Area. 

“Because this proposal would potentially shift air traffic from New Jersey to New York,  I do not believe it is viable or well conceived,” Clinton wrote.  “That the FAA continues to expand funding on what has already been decided is not an alternative that meets the Purpose and Need of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the airspace redesign plan under the National Environmental Policy Act is disturbing.”

Clinton’s letter was dated Aug. 3, one day before the Air Transport Association (ATA) sent a similar letter to the FAA’s Eastern Regional also strongly opposed to the Ocean Routing Alternative, which was designed to reduce noise impact on New Jersey communities by routing aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean to gain altitude before turning back over land.  Both letters offer the same arguments for dropping the Ocean Routing Alternative: that it does not meet the Purpose and Need of the DEIS to “increase the efficiency and reliability of the airspace structure and ATC system” and that it would increase airspace complexity and flight time.  Although NJCAAN and others have insisted that noise mitigation be part of the Purpose and Need of the airspace redesign project, FAA has omitted it, saying it will deal with noise issues later.

“That [FAA noted in the DEIS that] the Ocean Routing Alternative would not ‘reduce delay, balance controller workload, meet system demand, improve user access, expedite arrivals and departures, increase flexibility, nor maintain airport throughput,’ begs the question as to why this alternative remains in consideration as a viable alternative,” Clinton wrote. 

“In an era of increasing air traffic, increasing fuel costs, and increasing demand,” she said, “it seems this proposal would hurt air traffic at [Newark, LaGuardia, JFK, and Philadelphia International Airport] and the airspace around them.”

The Staten Island Advance newspaper reported Aug. 14 that Sen. Clinton told attendees at a local Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Staten Island that the FAA had rejected the Ocean Routing idea years ago in the mid-1990s “but like a bad penny it showed up again.”  The paper reported Clinton saying that, at a congressional briefing held in June, the FAA said it was considering adopting the Ocean Routing Alternative for nighttime use in the agency’s airspace redesign.

However, a spokesman for FAA’s Eastern Region said that is incorrect.  FAA never said that it would implement Ocean Routing at night, he said.  What the agency said at the Congressional briefing is that it would consider using some component of the Ocean Routing alternative as a mitigation measure.

The Air Transport Association told FAA in its letter that it was “simply inconceivable” that the agency would give serious consideration to any airspace redesign, such as the Ocean Routing Alternative, that would result in increased aircraft fuel burn.

Meanwhile, opposition by local governments against any alternative to revising the airspace over the NY/NJ/Philadelphia metropolitan region that would bring additional noise to their communities continues to grow.

The latest comes from Delaware County, PA, where part of Philadelphia International Airport is located.  At a mid-July press conference, county officials vowed to fight the FAA over its airspace revision plan, which they said would increase noise impact over parts of the County by as much as six to nine times current levels.

Delaware County is the first governmental body to oppose the plan in the Philadelphia area, although the plan does have the support of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.  County officials said that the “county will be adversely affected by the project as it will result in an overall drastic increase in the noise exposure to county businesses, public facilities, schools and residents.”

-Airport Noise Report, Vol. 18, No. 26 (August 16, 2006); www.airportnoisereport.com