… and I look forward to seeing where this initiative goes, because the concept is a good one.
The National Air Transportation Association seeks to get members and other interested parties active in local issues impacting the industry – to bring together “members in every state who will serve as liaisons between member businesses, state legislatures, and the association.”
"General aviation businesses are confronted with issues that require prompt attention, including airport and land use, security, taxation, aircraft noise, and emissions," says NATA president Jim Coyne. "Identifying pertinent legislation and regulations ahead of their implementation in every state throughout this country is one of the greatest challenges we face as an industry."
Not a new idea, but a new one for NATA. At the very least, having local aviation voices heard can’t be a bad thing.
I signed up, got my packet, and it included a “Summary of Economic Impact of General Aviation in Texas”. Good stuff, and helpful if one is “advocating” in the capital city of Austin. The association plans to provide regular updates to participants as well as a monthly conference call.
I called NATA vice president Eric Byer for a bit of elaboration. Says Eric, “Over the past two years we’ve spent so much time on state and local issues – flight training in California; avgas; and others. We decided, why not get our members involved in a more formal fashion on a local level? We’ve gotten a lot of interest and have heard from all 50 states.
“Members see local issues coming that affect aviation. It could be a state tax issue; a noise abatement issue; or whatever.”
Case in point: California Governor Jerry Brown last fall signed Senate Bill 619 into law, completing an almost two-year-long battle to ensure that rules issued by the California Bureau of Private Post Secondary Education did not destroy the flight training industry in the state, according to NATA. The lawmakers had been attempting to apply a law to flight training that would have been onerous financially and was targeted at training/education in general, but didn’t actually apply to flight training.
Said NATA’s Coyne at the time, “While we wish this long process could have been avoided in the first place through inclusion of flight training providers in the legislative process, today’s signing of SB 619 speaks volumes about the power of our industry when we all stand up and work together.”
At the end of the day, that’s the point of the advocacy network.
Thanks for reading. jfi
