Modest progress with one glitch
The last meeting of the Des Moines City Council introduced a first draft of their state airport legislative agenda. There were important positive steps, marred only by one glitch.
The presentation slides reflected last year’s agenda, which still mentioned funding for a fixed-site Air Quality Monitor as a goal. That funding was achieved and as of today, the University of Washington reports it will likely be functional by the end of 2025!
The city is also proposing a new community impacts study. The 1997 HOK was mentioned as a model which we fully support after the woefully insufficient 2019 Stantec study.
And for the first time, Des Moines may no long support the Port of Seattle’s Shared Start state agenda, leaving it to their lobbyist to craft language that emphasizes the City’s desire to partner with the Port, but only on issues that genuinely align with both sides’ shared interests.
Surprise…
However, in a surprise from the dais, Councilmember Matt Mahoney said he had spoken with Senator Tina Orwall and was proposing a statewide “negative-impact airport usage fee.”
“Two, three, five dollars per ticket of any passenger using a commercial airline or airport… be assessed into an account.”
“Say a third of it goes to port package and noise abatement… and there’s a distribution… to the communities and it could be used for capital projects.”
“We can pay for noise machines and air quality machines and fight this and fight that and I’m not sure we can win any of those.”
The goal is laudable. It is also completely illegal. User fees have been proposed and litigated over and over. This highlights chronic misunderstandings about airports. Worse, it risks distracting a frustrated public from understanding the real progress we can be making this year.
Law and regulations
Federal law (49 U.S.C. § 40116, the Anti-Head Tax Act), prohibits any state or local government from imposing per-passenger or ticket-based charges on air travelers.
Even if such a fee were permitted, the revenue could not legally be shared with cities. Under FAA grant-assurance rules (49 U.S.C. § 47107(b)), airport-related revenues must stay on-airport and be used only for airport purposes. Transferring money to cities for “capital projects” or “community compensation” would be treated as revenue diversion.
The only lawful per-passenger mechanism is the FAA’s Passenger Facility Charge (PFC), also strictly regulated. The only community impact it can address is a one-time noise mitigation (Port Packages).
Politically Impossible
The proposal also assumes electeds at any level might be interested. Since the 1990 Airport Noise and Capacity Act, there has been no major federal legislation addressing funding for community impacts. Given that record, a new per-ticket impact fee—especially one benefiting off-airport communities—is politically implausible.
The money is already there
He went on to say:
“There’s not money for it. There just isn’t.”
This is not true. In 2024, the Legislature passed SB 5955, establishing a state Port District Equity Fund to support noise-mitigation repair and replacement. In response, the Port of Seattle adopted Order 24-04 (the Sound Insulation Repair and Replacement Pilot Program or SIRRPP), allocating $6 million for that purpose.
We agree that the SIRRPP was poorly rolled out (the Port has yet to repair a single home.) But that money, and tens of millions more has always been available. The issue has always been execution, not an absence of Port funding. The City of Burien has already made a formal complaint to the Port. Des Moines should follow suit.
Constructive Path Forward
After fifteen years of making things worse — with disastrous moves like revoking its own sound code — the Council has finally begun to make slow, but steady forward progress. With the SAMP, things should be moving much faster, but what it has done is not nothing.
We look forward to the city doing the following:
- Continue last year’s excellent support for the University of Washington on air quality.
- Fully support the city-led community impacts study we’ve been waiting for since 1997.
- Follow Burien’s lead and press the Port of Seattle to begin Port Package repairs immediately under Order 24-04.
- Encourage the State to restore the $1,000,000 in SB 5955. dropped from last year’s budget.
- Insist that the Port of Seattle stop making false excuses and begin using its own money provide the community relief it always should have been doing.
And above all, start taking airport issues seriously. That means recognizing what has always been possible and not misleading the public. Advocate for proposals that are legal and politically feasible. Now.