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ular forces in the performance of peacetime missions during domestic emergencies and during routine and peak operations. The program activities fall into the following categories:

Initial training.-For non-prior-service trainees.

Continuing training.-For officer and enlisted personnel through the performance of drills and annual active duty training.

Operation and maintenance of training facilities.-For the day-to-day operation and maintenance of Reserve training facilities, including organized Reserve training units.

Administration. For all administrative functions required in the operation of the Reserve Forces Program.

The bill includes $65,500,000 for Reserve training, which is $800,000 less than the House allowance, and $3,642,000 less than the budget request. For budgetary reasons, the Committee concurs with the House in denying the requested 500 position increase in the Selected Reserve. The amount recommended is, nonetheless, $1,100,000 above the fiscal 1987 level.

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The Coast Guard's Research and Development Program seeks to improve the tools and techniques with which Coast Guard carries out its varied operational missions and to increase the knowledge base upon which it depends to fulfill its regulatory responsibilites.

The bill includes $19,700,000 for research, development, test, and evaluation, which is $419,000 less than the budget request and $300,000 less than the House allowance.

The Committee recommendation for funding distribution is as follows:

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The amount provided for administration will support the requested complement of military and civilian positions.

OCEAN DUMPING ENFORCEMENT

Also included is $994,000 to support the installation and evaluation of technology for monitoring sludge and garbage carrying vessels. Contamination from lawful ocean dumping has forced the closure of several eastern seaboard beaches this summer. More effective enforcement is clearly needed.

Sludge vessels

The technology to be installed on sludge dumping vessels will make it possible to determine the volume of material carried, the position of the vessel, and the time and location of the release of the sludge into the marine environment. The Committee assumes that $729,000 will be devoted to the establishment and operation of this tracking system in the New York-New Jersey area, including $544,000 for the manufacture and installation of tracking devices on vessels receiving permits for use of the designated 106 mile site.

Garbage Vessel Pilot Program

The remaining $165,000 is to support a pilot program for the development of similar surveillance technology for garbage vessels. Tracking devices will be installed on five vessels to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of electronic monitoring in the enforcement of garbage disposal regulations.

The Committee expects that the Coast Guard will continue to fund the Maritime Fire and Safety Association's research and training project on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers in Oregon and Washington.

OFFSHORE OIL POLLUTION COMPENSATION FUND

Appropriations, 1987.

Budget estimate, 1988..

House allowance..

Committee recommendation......

$1,000,000

Title III of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments of 1978 provides for an oil pollution compensation fund to pay compensation for damages, including cleanup resulting from oil spills as a result of loading, offloading, or transit activities taking place on the Outer Continental Shelf. Receipts are generated from a fee on Outer Continental Shelf oil.

The bill includes the requested authority to borrow from the Secretary of the Treasury should appropriations be insufficient to meet obligations. The bill also includes the requested language limiting total fund obligations to $60,000,000 in fiscal year 1988.

Appropriations, 1987.

Budget estimate, 1988.

DEEPWATER PORT LIABILITY FUND

$1,000,000

House allowance...

Committee recommendation..

The Deepwater Port Liability Fund was established to provide a system for determination and settlement, without fault, of claims for all cleanup costs and damages incurred, but not otherwise compensated, as a result of discharges of oil into the marine environment from deepwater port activities. (33 U.S.C. 1517(f)).

Fund resources accrue from fees on oil transiting deepwater port facilities. The Deepwater Port Amendments Act of 1984 suspended the fee, beginning on September 25, 1984, so long as fund balances total not less than $4,000,000. The current fund balance is $4,658,000.

The Committee concurs with the House in including bill language limiting fund obligations to $50,000,000 and providing authority to borrow from the Secretary of the Treasury should additional resources be required.

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This account provides financial assistance for a coordinated national Recreational Boating Safety Program for the several States. Title 46 United States Code, section 13106, establishes a "Boat safety" account from which the Secretary may allocate and distribute matching funds to assist in the development, administration, and financing of qualifying State programs. The "Boat safety" account consists of amounts transferred from the highway trust fund which are derived from the motorboat fuel tax (9 cents per gallon). The total transferred may not exceed $45,000,000. Receipts in excess of $45,000,000 are transferred to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the "Sport fish restoration" account, which are managed by the Department of the Interior.

The Committee recommends $30,000,000 in liquidating cash in fiscal year 1988. This is $15,000,000 more the House allowance and budget request.

The Committee also recommends bill language limiting fiscal year 1988 obligations from the "Boat safety" account to $30,000,000. This is $15,000,000 more than the House allowance and the budget request but is consistent with the provisions of S. 1459, the Coast Guard Authorization of 1987, as reported from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

SUMMARY OF FISCAL YEAR 1988 PROGRAM

The Federal Aviation Administration traces its origins to the Air Commerce Act of 1926, but more recently to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 which established the independent Federal Aviation Agency from functions which had resided in the Airways Modernization Board, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, and parts of the Civil Aeronautics Board. FAA became an administration of the Department of Transportation on April 1, 1967, pursuant to the Department of Transportation Act (October 15, 1966).

The total recommended program level for the FAA for fiscal year 1988 amounts to $6,042,102,000, including a $1,335,500,000 obligation limitation on the use of contract authority for the Airport Grants Program. This represents, in the aggregate, an increase of $1,077,173,000 over the fiscal 1987 level. The following table summarizes the Committee's recommendations:

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1 Assumes obligation of $10,000,000 provided by transfer for reemployed annuitant program.

2 Includes $1,850,000 carryover from 1986.

3 Includes $51,537,000 contained in budget amendment to be derived from transfers.

*Includes $1,914,000 unobligated balance transferred from research, engineering, and development. $ Limitation on obligations.

AVIATION SAFETY INDICATORS

The Committee is concerned about the growing confusion surrounding the protracted polarized debate over the margin or level of safety in air traffic operations. The administration argues that the system is safe on the basis of the rarity of aviation accidents attributable to the operations of the system relative to the total number of flight operations. On the other hand, the National Transportation Safety Board and others point to increases in the number of reports of near-midair collisions and controller or operational errors as evidence of deterioration in the margin of safety.

The Committee believes that it is time to end the debate and the confusion by establishing a standardized set of safety indicators which can be used with confidence to measure the safety performance of FAA's air traffic operations on a consistent basis over time. In that re

gard, the Committee directs the FAA to initiate the development of a set of standard safety indicators not later than 60 days after the enactment of this legislation. In developing these indicators, FAA should consult closely with the following: the National Transportation Safety Board, representatives of the aviation system user community, the Aviation Safety Commission, and such other organizations, entities, and individuals as may possess pertinent expertise. The result should be a concensus as to what safety-related data should be used, how it should be analyzed, and how it should be interpreted. It is the Committee's intention that the results of such efforts be implemented as soon as possible and that the House and Senate Appropriations Committees be kept appraised as to the progress being made in resolving this issue.

NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM PLAN

The Committee concurs in the views of the House as to the National Airspace System [NAS] plan accomplishments, delays, funding levels, and potential implementation and system integration problems.

Regarding funding levels, the Committee also emphasizes that, despite claims to the contrary, inadequate funding through the appropriations process has not been a cause for either delays in acquiring new systems under the plan or the accumulation of inordinate balances in the aviation trust fund. The current fund balance is also a function of the burgeoning ticket tax revenues derived from the continuous surge in air travel over the past 5 years. Added to that is the interest earned by the fund on its investments in Treasury securities. Interest is the second largest source of fund revenues.

In the meantime, a number of major subsystems of the NAS plan were still under development and had not yet reached the stage where major expenditures of trust fund moneys for full production were feasible. Moreover, the major NAS plan subsystems are now behind schedule and over cost due to technical and managerial problems. A March 1987 GAO report (GAO/RCED-87-8), for example, indicates that the 11 major NAS plan projects are now from 1 to 8 years behind schedule. What was touted in 1982 as a 10-year, $10,000,000,000 modernization plan will now cost at least $16,000,000,000 and will not be completed until sometime after the turn of the century. This slippage in NAS plan project schedules, in turn, has reduced the amount that could be appropriated from the trust fund for operations and maintenance of the air traffic system due to the so-called penalty clause in the 1982 Reauthorization Act. Under this provision, the amount authorized for the operations appropriation was determined by the following formula: 1.377 times the obligation limitation for Airport Improvement Program grants minus 2 times the excess of authorization for "Facilities and equipment" [F&E] over the actual F&E appropriation. Since 1982, this provision has reduced the amount that would otherwise have been appropriated from the trust fund by at least $3,300,000,000.

1 Average multiplier 1983-87.

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