{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom-news-releases-barrasso-lummis-introduce-legislation-to-improve-rural-airports/", "Barrasso, Lummis Introduce Legislation to Improve Rural Airports", "2023-03-30", "2023", "2023-03", "Republican", "Senate", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", "barrasso", "https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom/news-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, both R-Wyo., recently introduced legislation to help small, rural airports unfairly affected by burdensome regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that put their federal funding at risk.\n\nMany small, rural airports across the country have been forced to reduce air service and have not been able to meet federal mandates to continue receiving grants from the FAA. These airports use these federal funds for important safety enhancements, efficiency improvements, facility upgrades, and equipment and air service infrastructure projects.\n\nThis legislation would create a temporary exemption for small airports that previously qualified for funding but have now lost eligibility due to the lingering effects of COVID-19 lockdowns, pilot shortages, and regional airline closures. It would save these small airports from losing thousands of dollars that help improve air service in many rural communities.\n\n\u201cRural airports across Wyoming are critical for many residents needing to travel across the state and around the country. They\u2019re also vital to our state\u2019s economy since they make Wyoming\u2019s iconic tourist attractions more accessible to visitors from around the world,\u201d said Senator Barrasso. \u201cThis bill will ensure rural airports across Wyoming \u2013 from Evanston to Gillette and Cheyenne to Cody \u2013 continue to receive the resources they need to improve air service.\u201d\n\n\u201cDuring the past few years, rural airports throughout Wyoming have struggled due to the pandemic and a lack of pilots. Without access to Airport Improvement Program grants, rural air service would suffer even more,\u201d said Senator Lummis. \u201cThis commonsense legislation will allow for Wyoming airports to flourish and for our economy to benefit from additional visitors to our state.\u201d\n\nFull text of the legislation can be found here.\n\nBackground:\n\nCurrently, the FAA requires a 10,000 enplanement threshold in order for airports to receive the FAA\u2019s Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants.\n\nPilot shortages and market conditions have also caused some airlines to pull out of communities completely reducing enplanement numbers that determine an airport\u2019s eligibility for grants.\n\nIf passed, this legislation will allow airports to use the number of enplanements during 2019, 2020, and 2021 (whichever had the highest number of enplanements) if the airport does not reach the 10,000 threshold in order to continue receiving AIP grants.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T17:54:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom-news-releases-barrasso-lummis-introduce-legislation-to-improve-rural-airports/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9366609156131744, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}