President Donald Trump's budget blueprint reduces the
Department of Transportation's budget by $2.4 billion, or 13 percent.
The budget also supports shifting the FAA's air traffic
control function into "an independent, nongovernmental organization,"
a move proposed last year but shot
down during the FAA reauthorization process in the Senate. House
Transportation & Infrastructure Committee chairman Bill Shuster, who co-sponsored
the ATC bill last year, said he intended to get another bill to President Trump's
desk this year. "By removing the ATC function from the FAA, Americans will
see a more efficient system, flight times decrease, on-time departures
increase, emissions reduced and 21st century technology deployed to guide our
planes from gate to gate," Shuster said. "On top of that, the FAA
will be able to focus on safety and robust oversight of the new not-for-profit
service provider."
In the past, critics of the proposal have said moving ATC
out of government could compromise air travel safety.
Proposed Budget Cuts
President Trump's budget proposes reducing Amtrak subsidies
to "focus resources on the parts of the passenger rail system that provide
meaningful transportation options within regions." That includes ending
federal support for long-distance Amtrak train service in favor of a greater
focus on the Northeast Corridor line and state-supported, short-distance routes.
The blueprint also calls to eliminate funding for the
Essential Air Service program, began about 40 years ago to subsidize commercial
air service to rural airports. The budget estimates this will save $175 million.
Trump's proposal notes that flights benefiting from the program "are not
full and have high subsidy costs per passenger" and that many communities
included also are close to major airports.
The blueprint also proposes to eliminate the Transportation
Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant program that former President
Barack Obama's administration established in its 2009 stimulus package. Cutting
the grants, which help fund surface transportation projects, will save an
estimated $499 million. The proposal says projects funded by TIGER "are
generally eligible for funding under existing surface transportation formula
programs," although Sen. Bill Nelson told the publication The Hill that
cutting the grants would cause "big-time trouble," as they are
"essential to rehabbing our infrastructure."
Regarding Trump's promised $1 trillion investment in
infrastructure, the proposal noted that he "has tapped a group of
infrastructure experts to evaluate investment options along with commonsense
regulatory, administrative, organizational and policy changes to encourage
investment and speed project delivery."
The Transportation Security Administration would see cuts
under the proposed budget, as well, including $80 million from
"unauthorized and underperforming programs." Part of that includes reassigning
"behavior-detection officers" to frontline airport security
operations, a move TSA already planned as of last summer.
The
budget proposes an increase to the Passenger Security Fee, currently $5.60 per
one-way trip. The proposal also aims for that fee to cover 75 percent of TSA
aviation security operation costs "to ensure that the cost of government
services is not subsidized by taxpayers who do not directly benefit from those
programs."