CBO Raises Cost Estimate of ATC Privatization to Almost $100 Billion

Stephen Pope

Thursday, August 17, 2017 at 09:08 PM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) drastically increased the estimated 10-year cost of the 21st Century Airr Act, which aims to privatize air traffic control, from $20.7 billion to $98.5 billion.
This ballooning cost, coupled with existing opposition from many Republicans and all Democrats, has effectively stalled the bill, making its passage "all but dead as written."
Critics, including general aviation leaders, argue the proposal would create an airline-influenced monopoly and unnecessarily cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion to overhaul an already world-class system.

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Maybe now Bill Shuster, Donald Trump, Elaine Chao and Sam Graves will finally give up on their plan to remove air traffic control from the FAA and hand it over to a nonprofit corporation. The four main backers of the proposal received some devastating news yesterday as the Congressional Budget Office revised its estimate of the impact on the deficit of Rep. Shuster’s 21st Century Airr Act from $20.7 billion over 10 years to $98.5 billion.