Debate on Expanding O'Hare Airport Moves to House Panel

Taking a blunt approach to air travel delays, a House subcommittee took up a bill today to forbid states to block airport expansion and, specifically, would allow Chicago to rebuild O'Hare International Airport and add a runway without state permission.

O'Hare has the nation's second- highest volume of air traffic, and delays there frequently gum up traffic around the country.

Opposing any expansion, residents in the vicinity say the airport is already too noisy and produces too much air pollution.

The debate over O'Hare mirrors airport controversies around the country, but this afternoon the hearing of the House subcommittee on aviation was at times an all-Illinois dispute.

"The interests of a powerful few cannot and should not override the national interest," said the bill's sponsor, Representative William O. Lipinski, Democrat of Illinois, who complained that local politics was hurting people traveling to or through Chicago.

Representative Henry J. Hyde, the Illinois Republican who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, opposed the bill, saying it violated the Constitution. He pointed out that most airports were built by agencies created by the states.

"The law is clear," he said, " Congress has no power to intrude upon or interfere with a state's decision as to how to allocate state power."

Mr. Hyde's interest may have been more than legal. Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, testifying against the bill, pointed out that the O'Hare rebuilding plan put forward by Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago "takes out the condominium that Henry Hyde lives in."

Mr. Hyde touched on the philosophical aspect of the problem.

"Congressman Lipinski used the term `local politics' as a pejorative," Mr. Hyde said. But local politics, he continued, amounted to "the consent of the governed, which is the core of our democracy."

At issue is whether to build a major new airport 30 miles south of the city, near Peotone, a project for which the Illinois Legislature has appropriated money.

On July 9, Mr. Daley proposed a 15- year, $6.3 billion O'Hare project. The airlines oppose a new airport, saying it will increase infrastructure costs.

"The stakes for the national air transport system and indeed our nation's economy are far too high to allow the expansion of O'Hare or any other critical airport to be held hostage by local politics," Donald J. Carty, chairman and chief executive of American Airlines, said today.

Behind the debate is the realization that for many hours of the day traffic at airports around the country is above capacity as measured by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The airport improvements are subsidized by the F.A.A., but Illinois and 25 other states, including New York and New Jersey, require that those payments be channeled through a state agency, giving the state veto power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/02/po...rchpv=nytToday