Following is a portion of FY 00 funding information, from U. S. House Bill 9105

The conference agreement provides a total of $4,500,000 for the departure spacing program (DSP), including $2,500,000 in base funds and $2,000,000 above the budget estimate. The additional funds are to expand the program through installation of equipment at Teterboro, White Plains, New York Center, and the Air Traffic Control System Command Center.

Safe flight 21.—The conference agreement provides $16,000,000 for this program, including $6,000,000 for the Capstone Project in Alaska and $10,000,000 for the Ohio Valley Project.

Oceanic automation system.—The conferees agree to provide $27,000,000 for the oceanic automation system, and direct FAA to develop and acquire this system by traditional acquisition methods instead of by lease, as proposed by the House. The FAA’s proposal to acquire this equipment through an operating lease would burden the FAA’s already-strained operating budget with the requirement for an additional $100,000,000 over the first five years, which the conferees find to be unrealistic. Also, the conferees are reluctant to establish this policy in the absence of clear FAA criteria to determine when it is appropriate for modernization efforts to be funded by lease from the operations budget. Without such a policy the lines between FAA’s operating and capital budgets begin to blur, just at the time when the agency is working hard to get a clearer picture of its capital assets, spending, and requirements. In addition, the agency’s 1998 financial statement shows $103,000,000 in unfunded capital lease liabilities, so it is not advisable for the agency to expand in this area either. The conferees agree that oceanic system up-grades are urgently needed, and that FAA’s previous acquisition programs in this area did not produce the desired results. However, these programs were developed prior to procurement reform, and under previous leadership. The conferees are confident that with its current leadership, FAA can apply procurement reform methods and learn from its past mistakes to put together an aggressive, accelerated schedule and streamlined requirements for this acquisition. The agency has stated that this effort requires little development effort, and that the requirements are well understood. This, too, supports the feasibility of an accelerated schedule. The funding provided is FAA’s estimate of the amount required to execute this program in fiscal year 2000. The conferees would reconsider a lease for this program only if the agency puts forward a plan to cover in the lease the entire operation of these facilities, including air traffic control operations.

Wide area augmentation system. Last year, the Senate proposed broad restrictions on the WAAS program, which were dropped in conference when program supporters argued those restrictions could cause the termination of the program. While providing continued funding, the fiscal year 1999 conference report noted ‘‘those proponents have not been able to provide compelling assurances that this program will be cost-effective beyond the initial phase, which is expected to become operational early next year. The serious and persistent technical concerns expressed in both the House and Senate reports await resolution by the FAA at an unknown cost and in an unknown time-frame.

. . . The conferees intend for FAA to take a ‘‘time out’’ at this point to reassess the justification for the program beyond that point . . . Congress will be unable to adequately judge the need for future appropriations for the wide-area and local-area augmentation systems (WAAS and LAAS, respectively) until FAA completes an up-to-date alternatives analysis which looks at various combinations of existing and new, ground-based and satellite-based technologies.’’ The Appropriations Committees have waited over two years for this critical analysis, and warned several times that funding cannot be supported indefinitely without it. Despite this situation, the department still has not submitted this benefit-cost analysis for Congressional review. Further, the agency’s budget request assumes the program will continue well beyond phase one, ignoring the Congressional direction to take a pause in the program until clear justification is provided. The bill includes funding of $80,000,000 for the WAAS program. The conferees do not believe this program should go unrestrained in the absence of compelling financial justification. However, once these documents are submitted and reviewed, the conferees agree to consider a reprogramming request to restore funding, subject to Congressional approval at that time.

Next generation landing systems.—The conference agreement provides $20,000,000 for next generation landing systems, to be distributed as follows:

Instrument landing systems (ILS).. $18,000,000

Transponder landing systems(TLS) ... 2,000,000

Total ................................................. 20,000,000

Instrument landing systems.—Funding provided for instrument landing systems (ILS) shall be distributed as follows:

Activities included in budget es-

timate........................................ $6,000,000

Baton Rouge, LA .................................. 800,000

Clearwater/St. Petersburg, FL............. 3,500,000

Dulles International, VA .................... 3,440,000

Harry Brown Airport, MI ...................... 500,000

Newark, NJ (LDA/glideslope) ........... 1,160,000

Evanston, WY ....................................... 500,000

St. George, AK ...................................... 900,000

St. Louis Lambert, MO ......................... 700,000

McComb Airport, MS ........................... 500,000

Total ................................................. 18,000,000

Instrument landing system, Pike County Air-port, KY.—The conferees urge the FAA to give priority consideration to funding for an instrument landing system at the Pike County Airport in Kentucky, either using funds from this appropriation or from discretionary grants available under the Airport Improvement Program. The conferees understand that the Commonwealth of Kentucky has been working closely with FAA to obtain this system due to safety concerns brought about by the impact of weather and the mountainous terrain at this regional facility.

Transponder landing system.—The conference agreement provides $2,000,000 for the transponder landing system. The conferees agree with directions in the House report, and direct FAA to utilize fiscal year 2000 funding by contract methods, and not through continued leasing.

Local area augmentation system (LAAS).— The conferees believe that the work conducted by FAA under this program is more appropriately carried out with operating funds, since it involves review and oversight of industry development activities. The conferees have no objection to FAA’s use of operating funds for this work.

Airport surface detection equipment (ASDE).—Last year’s conference report expressed the concern of the conferees that ‘‘FAA move expeditiously to develop and deploy advanced technologies to prevent runway incursions. For this reason, the conferees direct the FAA to give funding priority to advancing runway incursion technologies to the pre-production phase’’. Despite this direction, however, the FAA has continued to move slowly in this program. The conference agreement provides $10,000,000 for the ASDE program, which includes $7,600,000 only for acquisition of production version low-cost ASDE systems. The FAA’s appeal to the conferees requested an additional $3,100,000 for this program, but the agency planned to use those funds to buy only a single, pre-production system. The conferees reiterate that technology is available and needed now to address the worsening problem of runway incursions. Further agency delays are not acceptable. By the end of fiscal year 2000, the conferees expect the FAA to have awarded at least one contract for production low-cost ASDE systems for deployment in the highest priority airports.