The point was at the three airports where they have the rules, they built giant new airports way out of the way from the city. JFK, Dulles, etc.

The rules were put in place to get people and airlines to fly from those new airports. As the years went on the people in office at the time kept adding distance to them, and exemptions so they just kept tossing the political football around.

McCain is (or was) trying to eliminate them in DC, there really has been no great push that I know of to get rid of them at LGA.

Today they are pretty stupid, if they were eliminated I don't think either Dulles or JFK would close down.