Colorado Governor Jared Polis has signed new legislation that encourages the state’s general aviation airports and communities to transition to unleaded aviation fuel.
The new legislation:
- Incentivizes aircraft owners to transition their aircraft to unleaded aviation fuel by providing a refundable income tax credit for qualified expenses.
- Ensures that the lesser of 10% or $1.5 million of state aviation funding each year goes toward aiding the transition to unleaded aviation gasoline.
- Requires certain airport grant recipients to adopt a plan for phasing out sales of leaded aviation gasoline by 2030, and establish and publish a voluntary noise abatement plan.
“We’re very excited about the overall transition to unleaded aviation fuel. This bill will very specifically accelerate that transition by ensuring that state grants for airports support infrastructure upgrades for unleaded aviation fuel,” said Polis.
In support of the state’s commitment to assisting Colorado’s public-use airports transition to unleaded aviation fuel, Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC) was awarded a $35,000 state matching grant for the installation of an unleaded aviation fuel tank. This complements an August 2023 surplus equipment grant for KBJC, which provided $40,000 to the airport for the purchase of a pre-owned fuel truck that will be dedicated to unleaded aviation fuel.
In May 2023, Centennial Airport (KAPA) became the first airport in Colorado to offer unleaded aviation fuel. Additionally, the airport introduced a subsidy program to assist aircraft owners and FBOs in transitioning to unleaded aviation fuel.
KAPA is awaiting approval from the Colorado Aeronautical Board for another grant to support the airport’s subsidy program. To date, more than 80% of the training aircraft at Centennial Airport have been certified to safely use unleaded aviation fuel, according to state aviation officials.
These projects pave the way for future state funding to help airports transition to unleaded aviation fuel as the industry makes progress towards a 100-octane unleaded fuel that can be safely used in all piston-powered general aviation aircraft, according to Colorado Aeronautical Board officials.
Over the next few weeks, the Division of Aeronautics staff will be working to implement the provisions of the new legislation, including reaching out to airports about the requirements imposed by the bill, and the new unleaded aviation fuel transition funding provisions created by the legislation.
The Colorado Airport System consists of 76 public-use airports that support over 345,000 jobs, provide $16.2 billion in annual payroll, and $48.6 billion in total business revenue for the state.
For more information: Colorado-Aeronautics.org
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