It’s the law: Burlington has authority to set standards that prohibit climate-killing and child-abusing aircraft from its airport

As owner of the airport, the City of Burlington has a unique power. Under federal law, and under its FAA grant assurances, the city can “prohibit or limit any type, kind, or class of aeronautical use of the airport if such action is necessary for the safe operation of the airport or necessary to serve the civil aviation needs of the public.” The city can use this power to protect children and planet so long as the conditions it sets are non-discriminatory and are to “be met by all users of the airport.” A copy of the relevant portions of the FAA grant assurances is at the end of this article.

Protect the Planet

The current recklessly wasteful burning of fuels is responsible for extreme heat waves, forest fires and air quality degradation, more frequent severe storms, flooding, and erosion, more drought and expanding deserts, loss of glaciers, rising sea levels, and loss of coastal lands, loss of species, more toxic algae in lakes, and increased risk of pandemic. Action to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions is essential for climate preservation and for public health and safety.

Therefore, safe operation of the airport includes establishing airport operating standards that preserve and protect the climate. One of the fastest ways the city can protect climate and public safety, as well as implement its 2019 “Declaration of a Climate Emergency,” is to use its federal-law authority to set a uniform aviation fuel-efficiency standard that drastically reduces the Burlington airport’s aviation emissions.

Exercising its power to set a non-discriminatory fuel-efficiency standard is the lowest of low-hanging fruit consistent with the city's declaration of a climate emergency: At one stroke, enacting a fuel efficiency standard would ban all the gas-guzzling aircraft currently using BTV. And it costs the city nothing to implement.

Most commercial passenger airliners get close to 100 passenger-miles per gallon. Some get 120. By contrast, most of the luxury private aircraft—the ones that exclusively serve a tiny fraction of the one percent—get between 10 and 45 passenger-miles per gallon. The worst of the worst is the F-35, which only gets 0.5 passenger-miles per gallon!

Using its airport proprietor authority to establish a minimum passenger-miles-per-gallon standard (or the equivalent in tons-of-cargo-miles per gallon) would prohibit the climate-killing F-35 and the luxury privates from using the Burlington airport.

Failing to establish an aviation fuel-efficiency standard for its own airport demonstrates depraved indifference to the climate emergency the city itself declared. It’s hypocrisy on steroids. Each and every member of the city government must be held accountable.

Protect the Children

As described in the article, “Chief of Pediatric Neurology at UVM Medical Talks F-35 and Children,” the noise of the F-35 is a poison to the development of the brains of children.

We’ve known for decades that children exposed to noise have poorer test results, poorer reading and poorer self control. And later in life, careful epidemiological studies on millions of people show that dementia, as well as heart disease, are also closely linked to noise exposure. Part of that strong evidence is what shows up as a kind of noise-dose-response: the higher the decibels, the greater the health problems in people exposed.

The F-35 is exposing people to well over 90 decibels. The brains of children are particularly vulnerable because they are developing. Medical studies leave no doubt that children living in high-noise areas are paying for that through a decrease in their cognitive skills. Children will live with the consequences of noise-induced setbacks for the rest of their lives.

Burlington can protect the cognitive development of the 1,300 children living in the extreme 115-decibel F-35 noise zone illustrated in the Air Force noise contour map.

Burlington can do so by using its airport-proprietor authority to set an aviation noise standard requiring all aircraft using Burlington airport to meet the same noise standard already established by the FAA for civilian aircraft.

Congress only provided the FAA with authority to require civilian aircraft to meet its noise standards. As its website says, “FAA does not have the authority to regulate the operations of military aircraft.” However, the airport-proprietor authority gives the City of Burlington a power the FAA lacks: To level the playing field at BTV by applying the same FAA noise standards to all aircraft, including the military aircraft the FAA lacks power to regulate. This makes particular sense because BTV is located in a densely populated city where even the military’s own discipline prohibits such military operations—if only the military would enforce its own discipline. But they don’t. So it’s up to the city,

Not only does the city have the power, its FAA grant assurances practically obligate it to use that power. The BTV airport is currently applying a two-tier noise standard that violates those FAA noise standards:

• a strict noise standard for all civilian airplanes, as set by the FAA.

• For the F-35, an aircraft that wildly exceeds the noise standards for civilian aircraft, no noise standard at all.

That is blatant discrimination, and a gross violation of the airport’s commitment to have standards that apply equally to all aircraft. It is also discrimination that causes lifelong harm to 1,300 children living in the oval-shaped 115-decibel noise zone.

The airport has the airport-proprietor authority to establish the FAA noise standard as the single noise standard for all aircraft using BTV. And it should do that.

One of the most important purposes of the FAA noise standard is to protect children from damage to their cognitive development from repeated exposure to extreme aircraft noise. This purpose is defeated at BTV airport because the City of Burlington practices blatant discrimination: allowing extreme 115-decibel F-35 training flights that impair the cognitive development of children while civilian aircraft are limited to the far far lower noise levels under FAA regulation that respect the safety of children. 

Not just that the city has the power. Its grant assurances obligate the city to enforce the same standards for all aircraft types. The airport can and must abolish this gross discrimination at BTV. One way is for the city to apply the FAA standard for all aircraft using BTV—with no exclusions or exceptions. Doing so will protect the cognitive development of the 1,300 children living in the extreme noise zone of the F-35.

The Burlington City Government is among a select few in knowing about a severe harm to so many hundreds of children, having the power to protect them from the harm, and deliberately, knowingly, and intentionally not using that power. Each and every member of city government must be held accountable for their participation and collaboration in this crime.

This is a particularly odious crime because the vast majority of the children living in the extreme noise zone are racial-minority or working-class or both. The children in wealthy neighborhoods, further away from the runway, are merely inconvenienced. Pairing the physical assault on the brains and lives of so many working-class and ethnic minority children with the city’s obsequious service to the users of luxury private aircraft is nothing short of a hideous display of selfishness and cruelty by Burlington public officials.

The assault on children is not negligence. It is purposeful, knowing, and willful. It is depraved indifference. If perpetrated by an individual it would be characterized as a hate crime targeting children based on racial and class status. The fact that the perpetrators of this child abuse are state and local government officials and their collaborators provides no excuse. Sympathetic words from public officials are worse than useless. Action to stop it now is what is needed. But that is not enough. All of these officials must be held accountable.

Burlington can do much better

Under the leadership of its Transportation, Energy, and Utilities Committee (TEUC) Burlington might start doing better. The TEUC can study the facts and the law. It can submit draft ordinances to the city council that would implement the airport-proprietor power to set reasonable aircraft fuel efficiency and aircraft noise standards for BTV to fix these problems to save both planet and children now.

At its meeting on June 27, the TEUC adopted a resolution that provides a first baby half-step. But the resolution sets no standards for the airport. It provides no ordinances for city-council vote. It is just the first step in recognizing and accounting for the aviation greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a step. But much much more is needed.

Winooski, South Burlington, and Williston also have power

Burlington is the only city with the airport-proprietor power. But other cities and towns also have different sufficient powers to protect their inhabitants from the vicious actions of Burlington city officials and Vermont state officials, as described in the article “Your City Council or Selectboard has the power to ban the F-35 training at BTV.”

Here are the relevant portions of the FAA Grant Assurances

Two of the provisions of the FAA grant assurances that were signed by the airport lay out the federal law allowing municipal airports to set standards and conditions so long as they are non-discriminatory and apply to all aviation users of the airport.

22. Economic Nondiscrimination.

          h. The sponsor [which is the city] may establish such reasonable, and not unjustly discriminatory, conditions to be met by all users of the airport as may be necessary for the safe and efficient operation of the airport.

          i. The sponsor may prohibit or limit any given type, kind or class of aeronautical use of the airport [that means any kind of airplane] if such action is necessary for the safe operation of the airport or necessary to serve the civil aviation needs of the public.

This provision means that the City of Burlington can set “conditions to be met by all users of the airport” and can “prohibit or limit any given, type, kind or class” of airplane.

The safe operation of an airport during a climate emergency requires setting a fuel efficiency conditions to be met by all airport users.

Setting a noise standard identical to the FAA noise standard, except that it applies to all aircraft, and not just civilian aircraft, is also necessary for the safe operation of an airport in a densely populated neighborhood where 1,300 children are repeatedly exposed to extreme-115-decibel F-35 military aircraft. It is also necessary to meet the FAA requirement for the airport to be non-discriminatory. Without a noise standard, discrimination prevails: a two-tier system. And thousands of Vermont families suffer.

A mass movement is needed to push hard on city and state officials for an end to the discrimination. Demanding compliance with Vermont law and federal law and with the military’s own discipline. For fundamental decency. To stop the blatant harm to the cognitive development of children. And to stop the class and racial discrimination.

27. Use by Government Aircraft

It will make available all of the facilities of the airport developed with Federal financial assistance and all those usable for landing and takeoff of aircraft to the United States for use by Government aircraft in common with other aircraft at all times without charge. . .

The airport is supposed to make available for the aircraft of the United States “. . . in common with other aircraft” means that government does not claim an exception for government aircraft from the city-established non-discriminatory standards that apply to all other aircraft.

The existing law empowers the city. What is needed is city officials who will do their job to protect the public.

This article is based on remarks to the Burlington Transportation, Energy, and Utilities Committee (TEUC) on June 27, 2023 during public forum.

Join us in the following upcoming actions

You can speak at council, selectboard, committee, and commission meetings of your city or town government. Speaking up during the regular agenda item of public forum by many people is a right and a necessity to press for action to protect planet and children. Here are two opportunities:

·  Wednesday, July 5^th at 4pm. Speak at Public Forum at the Airport Commission meeting in person Wright Room at the airport or on zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86253461005?pwd=U0lQem55VVRxb2RCUGs4aHVFb3VSdz09

·  Monday. July 24^th Rally outside Burlington City Hall at 6:30pm before the city council meeting. Then we go inside to speak at Public Forum at the Burlington City Council meeting following the rally to support the TEUC-adopted resolution that council members will be discussing and voting on. See that resolution here: https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/sites/default/files/Agendas/SupportingDocuments/VTANG%20Council%20Resolution.pdf

Write or call your public servants and demand an immediate halt to F-35 training in cities.

Governor Phil Scott 802-828-3333 Chief of Staff <Jason.Gibbs@vermont.gov>

Vermont National Guard's Complaint Line: 802-660-5379 (Note: the Vermont Guard told a reporter that it received over 1400 noise complaints). But the Guard won’t release what people say!

Submit your report & complaint to the still active Fall 2021-Continuing Now online F-35 Report & Complaint Form: https://tinyurl.com/5d89ckj9

See all the graphs and in-your-own words statements on the F-35 Spring-Summer 2021 Report & Complaint Form (513 responses): https://tinyurl.com/3svacfvx.

See links to the graphs and in-your-own words statements on all four versions of the F-35 Report & Complaint Form since Spring 2020, with a total of 1670 responses from 658 different people plus 77 more so far on the form that remains active now.

Senator Bernie Sanders 800-339-9834 <Senator@sanders.senate.gov>

Senator Peter Welch 888-605-7270 Chief of Staff <patrick.satalin@mail.house.gov>

Rep. Becca Balint <RepBeccaBalint@mail.house.gov>

Burlington City Council <citycouncil@burlingtonvt.gov>

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger <mayor@burlingtonvt.gov>

Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott <klott@winooskivt.org>

S. Burlington City Council Chair Helen Riehle <hriehle@sburl.com>

Williston Selectboard Chair Terry Macaig <macaig@msn.com>

VT Senate President Philip Baruth <Philip.Baruth@uvm.edu>

VT House Speaker Jill Krowinski <jkrowinski@leg.state.vt.us>

Attorney General Charity Clark <Charity.Clark@vermont.gov>

States Attorney Sarah George <Sarah.fair.george@gmail.com>

Vermont’s Federal Prosecutor <usavt.contactus1@usdoj.gov>

Adjutant General Brig Gen Gregory C Knight <gregory.c.knight.mil@mail.mil>

Major J Scott Detweiler <john.s.detweiler.mil@mail.mil>

Wing Commander Col Dan Finnegan <daniel.finnegan@mail.mil>

Vermont National Guard Inspector General Lt. Col. Edward J Soychak <edward.soychak@us.af.mil>

US Air Force Inspector General Lt. Col. Pamela D. Koppelmann <pamela.d.koppelmann.mil@mail.mil>

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall <Frank.Kendall@us.af.mil>