The budget proposal President Donald Trump released this
week would result in higher fees for air travelers and reduced funding for rail
travel and rural air travel subsidies. Overall, the proposal cuts the
Department of Transportation's budget 19.2 percent to $15.6 billion.
Proposals That Would
Impact Business Travel the Most
Amtrak: Spending
on Amtrak would be slashed by about half to $738 million. The cuts particularly
target long-distance routes, which operate at large losses and serve relatively
few passengers proportional to Amtrak's total ridership. The budget calls for
states to subsidize those routes.
Fees: The budget
calls for increases in both the TSA passenger security fee and user fees for
both customs and immigration inspection. It does not, however, call for raising
the cap on Passenger Facility Charges, which fund airport improvements. The TSA
fee, currently $5.60 per one-way trip, would increase by $1 in the 2019 fiscal
year and by an additional $1.65 the following year. The customs user fee would
increase from $5.65 to $8.40 and the immigration fee from $7 to $9.
Air Traffic Control:
The budget proposes to shift air traffic control out of the Federal Aviation
Administration to a "nongovernmental, independent air traffic services
cooperative," which Trump
endorsed last year. The idea is to free ATC from the federal budget cycle
in order to speed up a transition to satellite-based technology. Airlines, which
would be part of the governing body of the cooperative under previous
legislative proposals, have largely supported it. Detractors say it turns too
much power over to the airlines and could result in higher fares. The House of
Representatives transportation committee included the proposal in its FAA
reauthorization last year, but it failed to win sufficient support in the
Senate. The budget also calls for $71 million to improve airport screening
technology.
Essential Air Service
Program: The budget cuts $57 million in funding for the Essential Air
Service program, which subsidizes commercial flights in small communities. The
budget reduces the program to $93 million in discretionary resources, cutting
flights that are not operating at capacity and flights that serve communities
relatively close to major airports.
Supersonic
Flight: The budget includes funding for NASA to develop
an X-plane. Capable of supersonic speeds, it's scheduled to make its first
flight in 2021. The budget proposal also boosts funding for researching
hypersonic planes, capable of flying more than five times the speed of sound.