SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE FUNDING OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION.

SEC. 1212. SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE FUNDING OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION. (a) Findings.— The Senate finds that— (1) Congress is responsible for ensuring that the financial needs of the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that performs the critical function of overseeing the Nation’s air traffic control system and ensuring the safety of air travelers in the United States, are met; (2) aviation excise taxes that constitute the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, which provides most of the funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, have expired; (3) the surplus in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund will be spent by the Federal Aviation Administration by December 1996; (4) the existing system of funding the Federal Aviation Administration will not provide the agency with sufficient short term or longterm funding; (5) this Act creates a sound process to review Federal Aviation Administration funding and develop a funding system to meet the Federal Aviation Administration’s longterm funding needs; and 110 STAT. 3283 (6) without immediate action by Congress to ensure that the Federal Aviation Administration’s financial needs are met, air travelers’ confidence in the system could be undermined. (b) Sense of the Senate.— It is the sense of the Senate that there should be an immediate enactment of an 18-month reinstatement of the aviation excise taxes to provide shortterm funding for the Federal Aviation Administration.