The House Rules Committee met Wednesday to discuss SB 131, the “Airport Takeover Bill” that has been among the biggest stories at the Capitol during the 2019 session.
Despite passing the Senate earlier this month, its odds of making it out of the House have been seen as far from certain. Gov. Brian Kemp has stayed above the fray, but some have speculated that Speaker David Ralston could stall out the legislation.
Regardless, to move forward at all the bill must pass out of the sprawling, 39-member Rules Committee.
Sen. Burt Jones (R-Jackson), the author and de facto face of the legislation, was on hand to answer questions in a routine that must feel like old hat at this point. The Senator said he is reluctant to call the legislation a “takeover” but rather sees it as a “management restructuring,” though he admitted that it was probably too late to change that narrative.
Some familiar faces to those who have followed this process also made appearances at the hearing, including consumer advocate Dale Cardwell, City of Atlanta attorney Robert Highsmith, and new Hartsfield-Jackson GM John Selden.
Battle lines that have been drawn and re-drawn over the course of study committees and Senate debates were once more hashed out, with Jones and Cardwell pointing to the continued cases of corruption that have dogged the airport for decades.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has vocally and adamantly opposed the bill, going so far as to call it an “act of war,” has relied on the argument that both Atlanta City Hall and the airport itself are under new, improved, and much more transparent leadership. Recent events throw that narrative into doubt.
Last week the story broke that Bottoms had appointed a former campaign staffer as a deputy general manager of the airport at an annual salary of $275,000, despite lacking any appropriate qualifications. The Atlanta City Council immediately and unanimously passed a resolution to investigate those charges, which on Monday was vetoed by Bottoms.
On the flip side, Highsmith and Selden asked questions about the difficulty of debt transfer and pointed to the airport’s high rankings in efficiency, customer satisfaction, and of course traffic.
Those arguments now appear moot, as following the expert testimony Rep. Kevin Tanner (R-Dawsonville) dropped a bombshell that turned not just the airport debate but the entire transit discussion on its head.
Tanner, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, introduced a substitute to the bill that would not create a new airport authority, but rather a ‘Major Airport Legislative Oversight Committee’ that would oversee all of state’s 10 commercial airports. The committee would include the chairmen of the House and Senate Transportation and Appropriations committees, four House members appointed by the House speaker and four senators appointed by the lt. governor.
Calling it a “measured response, not a political one,” the committee would operate similarly to MARTOC, keeping a watchful eye on the vendor procurement process, with subpoena power to step in should the situation call for it.
The substitute legislation also includes the Delta fuel tax exemption already passed by the House, as well as the text from HB 511 which would create a new statewide transit authority to replace the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA).
Such sweeping and sudden legislation obviously brought up a new round of questions, some of which will undoubtedly be difficult to answer with Sine Die looming next Tuesday.
Several committee members expressed concern over the fuel tax breaks and a possible funding shortfall as a result, while others asked questions about how the state’s other nine airports might feel about a new committee.
Others questioned whether a massive “Franken-bill” containing so many moving pieces could be approved in less than a week, especially considering the Senate has already rejected the massive fuel tax break, which under the new legislation is slated to run for 20 years until 2039.
Sen. Jones, the author of the original airport takeover legislation, was disappointed in some of the changes but pleased that steps were being taken to provide more oversight of Hartsfield-Jackson.
He told InsiderAdvantage Wednesday evening, “I knew this (Senate-passed) legislation would be a heavy lift in the House and a lot of the members have not had the benefit of studying this issue and it is new to them. But we have an airport bill that is still moving forward to provide more accountability and transparency. So we will keep working it and hopefully we can get some sort of agreement with the House.”
Regardless, the Rules Committee passed the legislation and if you thought an airport takeover bill was a big deal before, it is now wrapped up along with every major piece of transportation legislation to come out of the 2019 session. Expect to hear much more on the bill from now until next Tuesday.
