Categorical grants as a tool of intergovernmental relations: Evolution of national airport funding and the Airport Improvement Program

In 1926, the national government of the United States established its authority over aviation and claimed sovereignty over America's airspace (Beard, 1931; Riker and Sened, 1991) through passage of the Air Commerce Act (44 Stat. 568). The same piece of legislation statutorily prohibited national funding of airports (Brazier, 1954; Karsner, 1993). Prohibition of national funding of airports by the said legislation, which simultaneously established the national government's authority over aviation, may appear idiosyncratic in contemporary political thought. The character of American federalism in that era, as manifested in the relationship between different levels of government, clearly supported the aims of the said legislation.;Efforts to delimit the authority and function of the national government, vis a vis state and local governments, were sacrosanct in American federalism before 1932, with the characteristic emphasis on dual federalism (Corwin, 1962; Elazar, 1990) as manifested throughout the Conflict Phase (Wright, 1988, 1990a, 1990b, 1997) of intergovernmental relations (IGR). The ravages of the Great Depression and the associated forces that propelled FDR's New Deal, however, marked a departure from the strictures of dual federalism and the Conflict Phase of IGR. The New Deal brought significant national funding to state and local governments and other local entities, including airports. Significant funding from the national government, primarily in the form of categorical grants, permanently set new regimes of IGR in motion and fundamentally altered the federal character of American government and politics (Walker, 1995).;Large, public-use airports represent the nexus of IGR that illustrate the changed character of American federalism, government, and politics (Riker and Sened, 1991; Douglas, 1996). The development of America's current airport system in under a century is a notable feat accomplished through IGR leavened by national funding in the form of categorical grants. This dissertation discusses categorical grants as a critical tool of IGR, and specifically looks at national funding of airports as an effective example of the national government's role in large airports at the local level. This study concludes with a discussion of airport funding under the Airport Improvement Program (AIP), the national government's current vehicle for funding airports.