Bush administration prefers simple airline aid plan WASHINGTON (Reuters) =97 The White House may not be able to talk Congress=20 down from approving more than $3 billion in airline aid, but the Bush=20 administration prefers that any package be structured so it can be=20 dispersed quickly. Congressional negotiators begin work this week on=20 competing House and Senate plans, hoping to quickly craft a compromise that= =20 will be attached to the Iraq war spending bill. The Transportation=20 Department says a lesson regulators learned from the bailout approved for=20 the airlines after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijack attacks was the length of=20 time it took to analyze requests for aid and distribute grants. That=20 program took effect more than a year ago and included $5 billion in cash=20 and $10 billion in loan guarantees. While most major carriers did not take= =20 advantage of the loan program, all of them sought cash reimbursements for=20 losses related to the attacks on New York and Washington. As of mid-March,= =20 the Transportation Department had received more than 400 applications for=20 compensation and still had a full-time staff handling a backlog of=20 requests. The agency has stretched payments over three installments,=20 analyzing complex applications and validating calculations from the=20 airlines on how much money they should receive. Amounts have varied from=20 $774 million for United Airlines, owned by UAL Corp., which is in=20 bankruptcy, to under $1,000 for a tiny aviation firm. Big carrier payments= =20 were completed months ago. But senior Transportation Department officials=20 have told Congress and said in interviews they hope the new aid plan will=20 coalesce around proposals to reimburse or forgive certain fees or taxes.=20 They hope the payout or credit could be done within weeks, rather than over= =20 a period of months. "We do want the bills to be written in a manner that is= =20 practical. The simpler and more straightforward, the better," one=20 administration official said. "It is essential that a financial aid package= =20 designed to assist just one affected industry =97 the airlines =97 include= =20 narrowly defined relief terms and be of limited duration," said=20 Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead. AIRLINE AID PLAN OPTIONS The separate aid plans would suspend certain fees for aviation security for= =20 the next six months. The government would pay the carriers between $900=20 million and $1.1 billion. But the $3.2 billion House proposal offers a=20 retroactive fee reimbursement to significantly boost the amount of money=20 each airline would receive. That would add more than $1 billion to the cost= =20 of the bailout and require applicants to account for the amount of fees=20 each has collected since the early part of last year. The payout would vary= =20 for each carrier. The $3.5 billion Senate plan would also reimburse=20 airlines for some of the estimated $300 million cost of replacing cockpit=20 doors with stronger ones on thousands of planes. The Federal Aviation=20 Administration has said all big airlines will meet this week's deadline for= =20 completing the job. The Senate bill would also authorize $225 million in=20 extended unemployment benefits for airline workers. While some members of=20 Congress say aiding a single employment sector is unfair to workers in=20 other hard-hit industries, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the=20 conference committee that will determine the scope of the aid urged=20 President Bush Friday to support the worker aid proposal. The airline=20 industry has cut 10,000 jobs since the Iraq war began almost three weeks=20 ago. But one senior Transportation Department official said he could not=20 see the administration supporting this provision or another one offering=20 $375 million to help airports with security costs. There is a $235 million= =20 airport security provision in the homeland security section of the war=20 spending bill. But the administration has in the past supported extending=20 government help for airlines to meet their high-end liability insurance=20 premiums, which accounts for nearly $1 billion in the Senate plan and has=20 widespread support in Congress even though such a request was not included= =20 in the House package. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.carstt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************