HJ0020 100TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HJ0020 LRB100 10332 MST 20521 r

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The neighbors of O'Hare International Airport understand the importance of this airport to Illinois' economy and its supply of good jobs; and

WHEREAS, The neighbors of O'Hare want to take an active and friendly role in helping the airport deal actively with its many noise problems; and

WHEREAS, Among the sponsors of this resolution are individuals who have talked with representatives of the City of Chicago and who appreciate the work that the Chicago Department of Aviation is doing to improve the technology that it is investing on gathering noise pollution data and improving data communications and database technology to consolidate and store this data; and

WHEREAS, This is not the first time that Chicago has reached out to its "noise neighbors"; as part of its long-term expansion plans, Chicago and many of O'Hare International Airport's principal airlines have maintained multi-year voluntary noise abatement flight procedures, instituted in 1997 and continuously revised since then as the "O'Hare International Airport Fly Quiet Program"; and

WHEREAS, Compliance with the Fly Quiet Program is overseen by the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission, an intergovernmental agency that includes Cook County, 41 municipalities, and 16 school districts adjacent to and around O'Hare International Airport; and

WHEREAS, The voluntary flight procedures included in the Fly Quiet Program include approved, voluntary, recommended aircraft pathways for safe commercial jet takeoffs from O'Hare International Airport, effective from 10 P.M. to 7 A.M.; and

WHEREAS, The O'Hare Fly Quiet Program releases quarterly reports to measure compliance with the elements of the Program, including compliance by airlines and their pilots with approved runway departure flight paths; these reports show that, as of 2015, many aircraft departures currently deviate significantly from the approved "Fly Quiet" flight paths, thereby imposing noise pollution upon substantial areas of residences, schools, commercial and industrial structures, as well as property owners, whose properties are not sufficiently monitored for noise pollution and are not sufficiently mapped as impacted by aircraft noise; and

WHEREAS, The Fly Quiet report published by the Chicago Department of Aviation and covering the fourth quarter of calendar year 2014 showed massive partial compliance and noncompliance with Fly Quiet runway departure guidelines, with one runway departure point (22L) showing only 40% of aircraft departure flight paths being implemented so as to keep the aircraft within 0.5 nautical miles of the approved takeoff pathway, so that 60% of the planes during this time period, taking off from this runway location, applied engine power and climbed into the sky while the plane was located at least 0.5 nautical miles or more away from the approved pathway; and

WHEREAS, Above and beyond runway departure point 22L, other O'Hare International Airport runway departure points also showed significant patterns of partial compliance and non-compliance with Fly Quiet takeoff flight path guidelines in the fourth quarter of 2014; and

WHEREAS, Overall monitoring by the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission and others indicated that, in 2015, Fly Quiet voluntary guidelines were being adhered to in only 30% of total flights during nighttime hours; and

WHEREAS, These examples of partial compliance and noncompliance impose substantial financial and quality-of-life burdens upon the neighbors of O'Hare International Airport, including individuals and businesses that understand the importance of the airport and want to be good neighbors; and

WHEREAS, The airlines that operate at Chicago O'Hare International Airport also have many other interrelationships with the City of Chicago, the Federal Aviation Administration within the United States Department of Transportation, and many other entities; and

WHEREAS, These airlines include the use of a specified number of departure gates and related support facilities; access to these departure gates and these support facilities are essential assets for doing passenger and cargo business at O'Hare International Airport; access to support facilities is an essential asset for doing non-passenger cargo business at the same airport; and

WHEREAS, Whenever an airline changes hands, and under a wide variety of other circumstances, access to major airport departure gates and support facilities is closely looked at by the owner of the airport, the United States Department of Transportation, and many other stakeholders in the United States airline industry; and

WHEREAS, The O'Hare International Airport Fly Quiet Program should be elevated to the rank of an independent, autonomous stakeholder in any future decisions made by O'Hare International Airport and its partners that will affect future allocations of airport departure gates and support facilities; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE SENATE CONCURRING HEREIN, that we state the belief that O'Hare International Airport's noise monitoring technology should be coupled with artificial-intelligence software, including, but not limited to, software that gauges Community Noise Equivalent Level noise levels, to the maximum extent allowed by current technology in order to match the noises perceived by each station at each time to specific individual flight operations and the operations of individual airline firms and to gauge the compliance of each individual airline firm with the noise, time-of-day, and flight path guidelines set down in the Fly Quiet Program; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we call for a measurable improvement in Fly Quiet compliance no later than January 1, 2017, with further improvements to follow; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge the Aviation Department of the City of Chicago to select a trusted third party that represents the interests of O'Hare International Airport's noise neighbors and to share the information enumerated in this resolution with this third party; such information-sharing should be carried out in a manner that does not violate the intellectual properties and executive status of secure information controlled by any significant stakeholders at the airport; and be it further

RESOLVED, That, as a part of this information sharing, we urge the Aviation Department and the trusted third party to collaborate to develop a rank-ordered chart of each airline firm's compliance with the guidelines contained in the O'Hare International Airport Fly Quiet Program; the chart should be public information and should be revised and republished not less than every 3 months on the same basis as the reports currently submitted by the Fly Quiet Program to the public; and be it further

RESOLVED, That these charts and the data from which these charts are generated should be given explicit and formal consideration as elements in any decisions made, subsequent to the start of the generation of this data and these charts, on the reallocation of departure gates and support facilities at O'Hare International Airport; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be presented to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation Anthony Foxx, and the members of the Illinois congressional delegation.