Aviation Weather Services: A Call For Federal Leadership and Action (1995)

Both the source and amount of funding for aviation weather services have a profound impact on aviation weather services and related research. The amount of funding defines the overall level of effort that federal agencies devote to aviation weather services. In addition, the distribution of funding defines which agencies have practical control over the specific aviation weather programs. As shown in tables G-1 and G-2, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Defense (DoD) are the primary source of federal funding for aviation weather services and related research. Although the National Weather Service (NWS) provides many important services related to aviation, the FAA has specific agreements with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to reimburse it for most of the aviation-specific services and research that it provides. Similarly, NOAA pays the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to procure and launch meteorological satellites. During fiscal year 1995, such interagency transfers amounted to $79 million (from the FAA to NOAA) and $256 million (from NOAA to NASA).

Unlike most federal agencies, the budget of the FAA is supported primarily by taxes levied directly on users of agency services (see Table G-3). In particular, the Aviation Trust Fund receives taxes collected on airline tickets, aviation fuel, air cargo, and international passenger departures. (During 1993, 88 percent of trust-fund receipts derived from the airline ticket tax.) The trust fund is then used to fund a portion of the FAA's activities as well as grants-in-aid to help pay for improvements in domestic airports and airways. However, trust-fund expenditures have not kept pace with receipts. Although the trust funds received $6.1 billion during fiscal year 1993, the government transferred $1.9 billion to the general treasury, leaving the trust fund with a net income of only $4.2 billion. In addition, in order to reduce the size of the federal budget deficit, the federal government has not authorized the expenditure of all funds collected by the trust fund. As of March 1995, this had produced an unexpended surplus of about $12 billion that could have been used to hasten improvements to air traffic management and aviation weather systems.

As shown in Table G-3, the FAA has been challenged in recent years by reductions in funding, but smaller budgets have not been accompanied by a lessening of the FAA's roles and missions. In order to accommodate these reductions, the FAA has responded by trying to eliminate funding for some functions (e.g., the Direct User Access Terminal Service, DUATS) and revising the way it provides others (e.g., the consolidation and modernization of its Flight Service Stations, FSSs). This has sometimes resulted in negative feedback from members of the public who use the services that the FAA provides, and the FAA has had to continue funding some services that it planned to discontinue (e.g., DUATS) and to modify proposed changes to other systems (e.g., FSSs).

Table G-4 illustrates how FAA expenses are allocated among its major facilities and user groups.

DOT (Department of Transportation). 1994. Air Traffic Control Corporation Study—Report of the Executive Oversight Committee to the Department of Transportation. Washington, D.C.: DOT.

OFCM (Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology). 1992. The Federal Plan for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research, Fiscal Year 1993. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce.

OFCM. 1993. The Federal Plan for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research, Fiscal Year 1994. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce.

OFCM. 1994. The Federal Plan for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research, Fiscal Year 1995. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce.

OFCM. 1995. The Federal Plan for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research, Fiscal Year 1996. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce.