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By Lookout Staff

August 12 – The State Senate landed on Santa Monica’s side Monday in the City’s ongoing legal battle with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ban larger, faster jets at the city’s 63-year-old municipal airport.

The morale boost came when the State Senate approved a joint resolution by Assembly member Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) to request the Federal agency to review the safety of flights in and out of the airport, which is less than 300 feet from adjacent homes.

The 21 to 16 vote, which was taken without debate, came one month after the Assembly passed the resolution by a 73 to 0 vote.

“I am very pleased the California State Legislature has recognized the need for the FAA
to fix the dangerous air traffic situation at Santa Monica Municipal Airport,” Lieu said.

“This resolution sends a strong message from the Legislature to the FAA that it needs to start working with local communities, including the cities of Santa Monica and Los Angeles, to address critical concerns about aircraft safety and pollution,” Lieu said.

The vote was hailed by Airport activists, who contend large corporate jets, such as the one used by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, are putting neighboring residents in Santa Monica and Mar Vista in the path of runaway jets, as well as at risk from pollution.

“Although safety is a major concern, it is the air pollution that residents downwind from (the airport) find most disturbing,” said Martin Rubin, director of Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution (CRAAP).

“Anyone visiting the Los Angeles neighborhood just to the east of Santa Monica Airport would not believe just how bad the pollution from the idling jets often gets and how this environmental injustice can be allowed to continue.”

The skyrocketing number of jet operations -- from 4,829 jet operations in 1994 to 18,575 last year -- has “caused significantly increased health risks to those residents who live near the airport and breathe in jet exhaust on a daily basis,” according to a statement from Lieu’s office.

Monday’s vote comes nearly four months after a Federal Judge blocked Santa Monica’s ban on high-speed jets, granting the FAA’s request for a temporary restraining order. The City is challenging the decision in an appellate court in what promises to be a lengthy legal battle.

In ordering the City to suspend the ordinance approved by the council in April, the FAA argued that the measure -- --which bans jets with approach speeds of between 139 and 191 mph -- is unnecessary and would harm jet operators.

The City has called the federal government’s challenge a “legal assault” on an ordinance responding to increasing concerns that soaring jet traffic is putting neighboring homes, as well as pilots, in danger.

In June, the City Attorney's office bolstered its motion asking an appellate court to allow the City to enforce the ordinance by filing a brief.

The brief argues that the City is likely to prevail on the merits of the case against the FAA's determination that the ordinance is illegal because the City is merely trying to implement federal runway standards.

Schwarzenegger, who uses the airport to commute almost daily from Sacramento, cannot veto the resolution because it is not a law.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear told the Associated Press that the governor will not take a position on Santa Monica's request, but says he will follow the law if the regulations are changed.

An FAA spokesman on Monday reiterated the agency’s position that the City does not have the authority to ban any aircraft at the airport.