The General Aviation Airport Coalition has initiated a petition on the White House website that, if signed by 25,000 people or more by May 16, 2012, will elicit an official response by the administration about how they determined that the proposed $100 fee for general aviation aircraft is fair.
“Even if we don’t get the 25,000 signatures, a significant showing on this petition will help us continue to make noise on this issue that just won’t go away,” say officials with the GA organization.
The proposed fee would impose a $100 per flight fee for aircraft that use ATC services. Piston aircraft and GA recreational flights are exempt from the fee.
The new petition asks the Obama administration to explain in detail, its continued push for a $100 per segment aviation user fee.
“In the interest of transparency and in order to maintain a healthy aviation industry, we request that the White House explain how it calculated that a $100 per flight segment user fee is a fair contribution to fund FAA,” the petition states. “We further request an explanation of how the White House determined that the most effective method of collecting this user fee should be through a new, yet-to-be-developed taxing system, rather than the successful aviation fuel tax currently in place.”
You can see the petition here.
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Why don’t you make a petition. We will sign in on your site an you can send the petition to the whitehouse? I am tired of fooling with the site!
Mitch
It took me 2 weeks to be able to sign this. After signing up it wouldn’t let me sign. I have tried several times. I finally made the list
Gee I looked at the list of signers and my name is NOT on it and now it says it is down for repairs. Is it that hard to sign this? I have signed lots of petitions and never had ts much trouble. Yes I am signed up and registered. NOW I AM ON THEIR LIST
They seem to not be in a hurry for us to sign I had to register twice and it took 5 days. I was thinking that they don’t want the input so they can do there own thing just like the white house is doing to every thing else.
With a little more change we’ll be lucky to afford getting on a bus, forget flying.
I DO!!! (excluding marital vows!) What we have is adult “toddlers”in Washington. When “Joe and Jane” public wake up and realize that what you stated and DO something about it, like restructure an orginizational (government) model that is out of date, put BUSINESS minded and qualified people in office who understand how the “free market” works, perhaps this society has a shot at another 100 years!
I have signed several petitions now, and once you HAVE gotten an account set up, you can use it each time and it is a breeze. This is for multiple petitions, not just for aviation, or any one group, kind of interesting just to look at all the petitions that are on the site … even lets us start our own! Not sure why they must know who we are, but as long as men in black helicopters dont show up …
It is a multi-step process to create and use a WhiteHouse.Gov account and, like most things governmental, it is not exactly user friendly to do so. Considering the impact that $100 per flight segment user fees would have on the vast majority of general aviation flights and the associated importance of this petition, I urge everyone who reads this post to jump through the necessary hoops in order to open one of these accounts and sign this petition.
I fly from an uncontrolled airfield without the use of FAA, why should I have to pay a user fee? I already pay a tax on the fuel I use. That more than off sets my usage of the FAA.
Created my White House account as info stated was necessary. Received confirming e-mail within a minute and copy/pasted to it’s designated site as instructed, pressed the “sign this petition” button and the counter incremented. Then to other e-mail-designated site to establish a reasonable password. No problems.
I already can’t afford to fly, this is not helping my case whats next the 100 dollar drop a duce tax, it must be nice to just be able to make shit up and enforce it by law. all this does it continue to create the social econimic status berrier that has been on going in avaition, as I told craig brown aviation has lost its roots and is turing..turned into a bishwa rich people status quo privatized social platform but I can’t say im suprised in fact ive come to expect this and sadly I will have nothing to do with that comunity I don’t fly to get from point a to point b like that majority of people today do I fly to fly and if the weathers bad I’m flying in the oppsite direction one of the many perks of my fly to fly philosiphy just like my boating verions where I go with the current, the waves the wind and not against it. you used to be able to go down to your local airport wash some planes fill the tanks and get to fly those days are long gone sadly along with the people that made it possible. I wonder what they’d say.
I’m a 52 year old student pilot signed up with a great school and just bought a 24 k airplane to train in. I don’t see GA like you do at all. The biggest detriment is the price of fuel. All the fees are in the fuel and now the govt want to add a $100 landing fee on top of the fees in the fuel, which again, is the bigest detriment to stay flying in this economy. But GA is the most welcoming community I have ever joined. I’m going to keep flying no matter what. And I am going to work darned hard to stop the govt attack on GA.
Initially had a problem with sign-in after registering. Â Found out is was because I was still logged-in from the registration process which prevents the “SIGN PETITION” button from being highlighted. Advice is to log out and clear cookies, etc., close the browser and then utilize the link above and sign in anew. Â That worked for me.
No problems here. Signed!
I had no problem following the directions and getting my account set up. Â It took me less than 1 minute to get the email, login and sign the petition. Â Does anyone have an official copy of the proposal? Â I would like to see the actual proposal on implementing the fee.
Why do we have to get 25000 signatures on a petition to get an answer to the User Fee price? The government works for us, we don’t work for them. They are supposed to answer to the people, we don’t answer to them. We elect them, they don’t elect themselves. I’m just a little bit tired of having to answer to someone who is supposed to answer to us. Doesn’t anyone else agree with me or am I the only one that feels this way?
 Like it or not, until an armed citizen militia shows up at the white house, this administration is a monarchy.
Amen to that
Not long ago I was in a store shopping and this lady was in front of me so I was waiting for her so I could get to the shelves. She started talking to me about the prices and I agreed, they have become unreal. She told me she was a school teacher and and her wages couldnt afford bacon and was trying to stockpile stuff because the revolution was comming. Kinda thought it was odd the way she put it but honestly its not the first time I heard someone make mention of something of that nature.
I agree, I agree totally. But the sad part is that our elected officials seems to think they dont owe us anything and only owe their political parties. And he in the white house is so hell bent on taking everything from those who have worked hard and earned it and give it to those who want to sit back and collect a hand out.
I gladly signed the petition!
So nowadays there are, what, some 300+ million people in the U.S.? Do you really think that our government should spend all of its time and effort in a futile attempt to respond to any and all questions and comments that anyone might have, rather than trying to get anything more tangible done?
It seems to me that the Obama administration’s online petition program is a very good thing, as it gives them a way to prioritize what questions/comments they should respond to other than simply listening to what their biggest campaign donors have to say (the traditional means by which politicians decide what is and isn’t important). It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
But I reckon that there are plenty of people around here (just look at some of the other comments posted in reply to this report, for example) who can’t possibly bring themselves to approve of anything that government – let alone THIS government (fill in the reasons for yourself) – might do. All they seem to know how to do is the knee-jerk reaction their favorite talking heads have told them to do. What a terrible waste…
Wow…one way to keep petitions at bay!
Site will not allow me to sign in or return my password when asked. The fill-in copy material is so badly formed it is not readable. Is this another White House Scam?
When I wasn’t signed in, the “green button”was there, but once I signed in, it was gone/grayed out.  Very clever. Do you think the WH doesn’t WANT anyone to sign the petition?
Can’t sign the petition. No response from the gov to open an account. I don’t think they want the petition signed.
 Looks like the same day I did it and no response . I re registered and they said I was registered but I had to go through it again to get my password. This must be a government site, dumb and incoherent.
that is just more of the same old commy. way of getting control of all of this country and have it under his thumb!!!!!!!Â
Not sure, but this seems like more of that open/transparent stuff we were told back
in 08, I’m sure many of us would like to vote, maybe we’ll find a way yet. Â
I want to sign the petition. The White House site that the link takes me to requires a sign in – so I try to sign in yet it says it has to send me an email to confirm – yet the email doesn’t show up to either of my addresses.
What’s going on? Is this a bogus deal, or what? Are they collecting email addresses for some nefarious purpose? Is this real or not?
That was an obviously well thought out and intelligent response … NOT!
 Yes, I probably shouldn’t have used the adjective “stupidest”. “Most idiotic” would have been better.