Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Construction
West-Press
Printing Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President

WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators say U.S. aviation officials have no legal authority to auction takeoff and landing slots at airports, a scheme the government devised to try to cut crippling traffic jams at major airports.

The letter from the Government Accountability Office comes amid a legal fight among airlines, airport operators and the Federal Aviation Administration over the Bush administration's plan to curb flight delays by auctioning off slots at New York City-area airports.

The legal opinion is another blow to Bush administration officials hoping to get their air-traffic experiment off the ground before they leave office in four months.

"We conclude that FAA may not auction slots under its property disposition authority, user fee authority, or any other authority, and thus also may not retain or use proceeds of any such auctions," GAO general counsel Gary Kepplinger wrote to lawmakers who had sought the legal opinion.

The GAO's top lawyer concluded that for the first time in 40 years, the FAA says it may assign airspace as its "property," but the laws covering the FAA were never written to include such a definition of property.

A Transportation Department spokesman did not respond to a comment request.

A number of House and Senate lawmakers had requested the legal opinion as they seek to stop the FAA's limited tryout of a slot auction this fall at Newark-Liberty Airport.

"This once again shows that the DOT needs to put a stop to this ideological battle that would cause chaos at New York airports. The administration has tried to jam through a half-baked plan that can't even be implemented," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the agency's biggest critics.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters proposed the auction plan after widespread complaints last year about rampant flight delays across the country. The government says two out of three flights delayed 15 minutes or more were due to cascading backups beginning at one of the New York area's three airports: Newark, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia.

Trying to fix the problem, the government imposed new limits on the airports and announced plans to auction off some takeoff and landing slots to control the crushing demand for time and space. By auctioning slots, the government reasons, market forces will help restrain such demand and make the system operate more efficiently.