Viewing page 33 of 507

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM   25

essential, very necessary, and a very necessary part of the air transportation picture. After some 17 or 18 years of experience and know-how we hate to lose it and see it go down the drain. It is apt to go down the drain from the split between the House and Senate. The House in its report says, on page 13 of the House report of last year, the conference report signed by Mr. Thomas, who is chairman of the Independent Offices Appropriations Subcommittee:

Amendments Nos. 13 and 14: Appropriate $82,500,000 for payments to air carriers instead of $79,000,000 as proposed by the House and $86,124,000 as proposed by the Senate; and authorize $3,359,000 for subsidy for helicopter operations instead of $3,000,000 as proposed by the House and $4,300,000 as proposed by the Senate.

This I want to emphasize:

The conferees have been wrestling many years with continuing subsidies for helicopter service for 3 cities while 39 other cities need it as badly as those that now have it. This is the last money to be recommended by the committee for these projects exclusively. The conferees respectfully request the CAB not to include one penny for these three lines in its budget next year. This position is unanimously agreed by the House conferees and a majority of the conferees of the Senate.

I emphasize there seems to be a desire on the part of the House committee to expand the services to more cities because they point out specifically that only 3 have the service while 39 other cities need it as badly as those that now have it. I question whether you can find anywhere near 39, but I do think you could find such towns as Houston, Atlanta, and even Washington, D.C. that do need it badly, and it would be wise if we could, within the framework of our subsidy program, meet these needs so that it won't be so narrowly confined to only three areas.

Continuing, the report reads:

This is the last money to be recommended by the committee for these projects exclusively. 

You will note the word "exclusively" for the three locations now served.

The conferees respectfully request the CAB not include one penny for these three lines in its budget next year. This position is unanimously agreed to by the House conferees and a majority of the conferees of the Senate.

The Chair is in doubt whether a majority of the conferees of the Senate did agree to the House position. I recall no vote that was taken in the closed conference that was held, and of course it was not a matter of record anyway because the Senate conferees could have spoken out by official voice at the time the conference report was adopted if they had concurred in the House conference, which they did not.

We seem to be on high center, we are stuck there. I don't know how we can get off it.

MR. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, we went through an exercise several years ago, looking to the certification of the helicopter carrier for the Washington-Baltimore area, and concluded that the subsidy cost would be in the neighborhood of $2 1/4 million a year. We felt that we were getting enough indications from the Congress that it was not interested

45-504--65----3