Senators Promote Airports - Ignore Community Impacts

July 24, 2018

Wyden and Merkley Advocate for Airports While Ignoring Community Impacts

A 7/23/18 Oregonian/OregonLive article announced that Hillsboro Airport (HIO) has been awarded a $12 Million FAA grant for airport "improvements." Four additional Oregon general aviation airports - Bend, Grants Pass, Albany, and Klamath Falls - will receive around $1 Million each. All of these airports cater primarily to the for-profit flight training sector and private recreational flyers.

Per Wyden, "These transportation resources will help to provide much-needed safety and dependability improvements for airports serving Oregonians," while Merkley stated that the grants "will help support crucial air service in communities throughout our state."

What they don't mention is that HIO primarily serves as a hub for the international flight training industry and as such does not serve Oregonians.

To access the announcement, see Hillsboro Airport receives $12 million for updates, training .

The Oligarchy Prevails

The efforts by Wyden and Merkley to secure these grants were apparently carried out in secret. The issue was not raised at the Hillsboro Master Planning Committee meetings nor was the public queried. It appears that the senators worked behind closed doors to promote the interests of China's state owned airline industry and other foreign interests as well as the out of state investors who train pilots or own flight training schools at HIO. In so doing, they have revealed their alliance with the aviation oligarchy that characteristically circumvents democratic process in the interest of promoting the interests of a small moneyed minority.

A 2014 Business Insider article entitled "Major Study Finds that U.S. Is An Oligarchy" addresses this issue. The peer-reviewed study, based on extensive policy data collected between 1981 and 2002, concluded that the U.S. is dominated by its economic elite.

According to the study:

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy...Researchers concluded that U.S. government policies rarely align with the preferences of the majority of Americans...When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it."

The above quotes well describes U.S. aviation policy especially its unresponsiveness to those being compromised and exploited by the elected officials who routinely align with aviation interests.

Hillsboro Airport, rather than serving the local community, primarily caters to student pilots, many of whom are recruited from overseas, especially China. Others are come from out of state. It is worth noting that the reason so many Chinese pilots are training in this country is because 70 to 80 percent of China's airspace is militarized thus is unavailable to civilian aircraft and pilots. For more information on how the users of HIO routinely pollute the air and erode the livability of local residents while promoting foreign governments and out of state business interests scroll down to the 4/17/18 article entitled Foreign Students Receive Pilot Training at U.S. General Aviation Airports: American Public Foots the Bill on the Oregon Aviation Watch website.

The largest tenant at HIO is Hillsboro Aero Academy, an international flight training school that, according to its website, trains students from over 75 different countries. The runways and other infrastructure at this facility are paid for with public money including FAA funds composed of commercial airline passenger fees and taxpayer dollars, as well as ConnectOregon handouts.

Environmental Impacts of Airports

Merkley and Wyden give lip service to concerns about global warming, yet at the same time funnel money to airports which are one of the most polluting forms of transportation on the planet. An award winning Oregonian series on Nora entitled "The Loneliest Polar Bear", the article Project Nora: What you can do to save the planet explored the impact of fossil fuel burning activities on climate change. Serious concerns were raised about the effects of global warming on rapidly dwindling polar bear habitat. The authors of the article offered suggestions about actions people could take to protect polar bears and the planet. One was to stop flying internationally. Yet both these senators support pumping millions into HIO, an airport which promotes excessive international travel by recruiting student pilots from overseas then sending them back to their home countries once they are certified. It would be far more cost effective to send flight instructors to the countries that want to access services rather than foist the substantial economic costs as well as the noise, pollution, safety and security risks on local communities.

HIO is a major polluter. It is the largest source of airborne lead emissions in the state, spewing a ton or more into the air each year. It is also a significant source of PM 2.5 emissions and an array of other toxic, carcinogenic pollutants.

The senators could have lobbied to obtain money for monitoring the lead and other pollutants generated by these airports but chose not to. Along a similar vein, they could have taken steps to reduce the noise impacts caused by HIO and other Oregon airports but again chose not to. They could have promoted high speed trains, a more environmentally sustainable form of transport, as an alternative to pumping billions into general aviation flight training airports that serve the few at the expense of the many but sadly this did not align with their policy of promoting corporate interests while diminishing the health and well-being of ordinary residents.