N E W S DECEMBER 12 op-ed Inquiring Photographer: COMPILED BY JOHANN HAMILTON What is your favorite part of the holiday season? My favorite part of the holidays is the food and spending time with the family. LOGAN O’CONNOR My favorite part of the holidays is the good will of all the people. Everybody seems to be in the best spirits. CLYDE WEINMAN My favorite part of the holidays is the college bowl games. JEFF OSTMAN I like the whole idea of Santa Claus. Also, excitement is in the air, and it seems like everybody is a kid again. “We’re All About You” PUBLISHER & EDITOR Victoria Schneps-Yunis ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Joshua A. Schneps EDITOR IN CHIEF Toni Cimino My favorite part of the holidays is spending time with the family, going to church and having a traditional Christmas. ELISE WAGER My favorite part of the holidays is seeing the Christmas decorations and drinking hot chocolate. JESSICA JULIG JOE MANDRA LeHavre Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd. Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 Sales Fax: 718-631-3498 e-mail: [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Jennifer Decio ARTISTS Stephen Reina Nirmal Singh Ron Torina Entire Contents Copyright 2013 by the LeHavre Courier. All letters sent to LEHAVRE COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Only letters with a name given will be accepted. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of LEHAVRE COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to LEHAVRE COURIER within fi ve days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. LEHAVRE COURIER assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold LEHAVRE COURIER and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. L E H A V R E Making Silent Skies a Reality BY CONGRESSMEMBER JOSEPH CROWLEY Anyone who lives here in Queens can tell you just how loud and disruptive the noise of airplanes can be. Millions of Americans throughout the country, including those who live in the s communities surrounding LaGuardia and JFK Airports are impacted by constant, thunderous engine noise all day long. The sound isn’t merely a nuisance – it disrupts sleep, distracts students in our community’s schools and drowns out the joys of daily life. The problem of excessive noise from airplanes fl ying over our communities has always been a hard nut to crack. Planes usually have a Congressmember Joseph Crowley limited number of options for approaching and departing from runways. These fl ight paths can change based on many varying conditions in weather, winds and congestion. Especially in the crowded skies over our densely-populated city, there are precious few places airplanes can fl y where they won’t be heard by some community. But there’s one way to resolve this problem to the benefi t of all our communities: make airplanes quieter. In 2006, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued regulations requiring all new aircraft designs to meet Stage 4 noise standards, which is a considerably lower decibel level than those currently in use. While these new rules were a signifi cant step toward improving the quality of life for those who live near airports, they did not go far enough. The FAA did nothing to make sure airlines would begin to phase out older, louder airplanes or retrofi t them with quieter engines. Last week, I introduced legislation to fi x that. My bill, the Silent Skies Act, will require airlines to begin stocking their fl eets with newer, quieter aircraft. In order to introduce quieter planes into the market, the bill mandates that the FAA issue regulations by the end of 2015 forcing airlines to begin updating their fl eets to meet Stage 4 noise standards. Fleets will have to be updated at a rate of 25 percent every fi ve years, so that all commercial airplanes meet these quieter standards by no later than 2035. But, we can’t stop there. We can’t just phase out today’s noisy planes and call it quits. We must push the envelope and try to develop technologies that make airplanes even quieter. That’s why the Silent Skies Act will also create a fund to encourage research and development into these technologies. It will allow the FAA issue up to $10 million in grants for developing better ways to help meet or exceed Stage 4 noise standards. In return, companies that benefi t from the program will be asked to pay the money back, using the profi ts they made on their new engines. When talking with my constituents about aircraft noise pollution in our communities, I always say our airports will never be perfect neighbors, but we can certainly make them better ones. The truth is our airports are only getting busier. New York will continue to be a destination for more and more people. And that’s a good thing for our local economy. But, that doesn’t mean our communities need to sacrifi ce their quality of life. The Silent Skies Act is just the kind of approach we can take to make life better not just for the residents of Queens, but also for so many other communities near airports around the country. Crowley represents New York’s 14th Congressional District, stretching from Pelham Bay to Elmhurst. 12 LEHAVRE COURIER | DECEMBER 2013 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM
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