Statement on Signing the Airport and Airway Safety, Capacity, Noise Improvement, and Intermodal Transportation Act of 1992

Today I am signing into law H.R. 6168, the "Airport and Airway Safety, Capacity, Noise Improvement, and Intermodal Transportation Act of 1992."

This legislation maintains the flow of capital to our Nation's infrastructure, ensuring the preeminent position of American aviation. Airport grants funding alone will provide more than 75,000 jobs to the economy in this fiscal year.

I have instructed the Secretary of Transportation to expedite the review and approval of projects funded by this legislation. We are prepared to put these dollars to work quickly in communities across America. This Act and the historic Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 that I signed last December together demonstrate my Administration's resolve to improve our Nation's transportation infrastructure.

This bill will authorize substantial funding for the next 3 years to modernize the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control system. The bill also adopts several other notable aspects of our proposals. It increases discretionary grants for noise abatement, which will make better neighbors of our airports as they grow with the economy. A small and successful State block grant program, shifting funds and decision-making for small airport development from the Federal to the State level, will be continued and expanded.

Not all of our goals were achieved, but the bill is a substantial gain for the American people. I am disappointed, however, that the legislation intended to accompany ratification of the Montreal Protocols to the Warsaw Convention was dropped from the bill this year, but we will work for enactment of such legislation and ratification of the Protocols in the 103rd Congress.

This is an important bill for our Nation, and I am pleased to sign it into law.

George Bush

The White House,

October 31, 1992.