Markeshia Ricks File Photo
Attorney General William Tong.
After months of deliberation, Connecticut’s attorney general has sided with Tweed New Haven Airport opponents in seeking to challenge a federal ruling on runway expansion.
The attorney general, William Tong, announced Friday that he has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to revisit a July appeals court ruling in Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority v. Tong. In that ruling, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals basically decided that the airport could go ahead and lengthen its runway beyond 5,600 feet despite a 2009 state law preventing it, because the Federal Aviation Act trumps the state law.
Since that ruling, Tong has been caught between two politically influential sides: the administration of New Haven Mayor Toni Harp and the State Senate’s leading Democrat and Republican, Martin Looney of New Haven and Len Fasano of North Haven. Harp, an early supporter of Tong’s 2018 attorney general bid, has pushed hard for airport expansion and thus did not want Tong to appeal the ruling. Looney and Fasano, who represent constituents who live near the airport, a visible number of whom oppose airport expansion, pushed for a Supreme Court appeal. (Fasano went as far as to request Tong recuse himself from the case because of his close relationship; Tong denied the request.) Tong’s office needs Looney’s and Fasano’s support to get laws passed in the legislature.
Tong had sought an extension of the deadline to decide whether or not to file the petition — past the time, it turned out, when Harp lost her mayoral seat in the Nov. 5 general election to Justin Elicker.
In a release, Tong’s office said the petition — drawn up with the help of Assistant AG Drew Graham and Solicitor General Clare Kindall — asks the court to consider two questions:
“1. Does a political subdivision of a State have standing to sue its creator State under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution?
“2. Does the Federal Aviation Act preempt a state law limiting the length of an airport runway, thereby depriving a State from determining the size and nature of a local airport?”
Click here to read the full petition.
Elicker released a statement Friday casting Tong’s decision as a chance for New Haven to “engage the community” more in figuring out the airport’s future.
“I acknowledge Attorney General Tong’s position and interest in protecting the State by questioning the legal standing of Tweed to sue the State and the larger ramifications of letting the lower court decision stand,” Elicker stated.
“The legal nuances of Attorney General Tong’s appeal should be recognized as complex and not anti-airport. I have spoken with Attorney General Tong and expressed the importance of Tweed’s potential as a driver in our regional economy. Though we need to support meaningful economic development across the Elm City, the appeal should also be viewed as an opportunity for us to have more time to engage the community in a meaningful dialogue about the future of Tweed New Haven Airport and potentially address some of the logistical, financial and neighborhood concerns about the runway extension.”
American Airlines currently flies three flights a day from New Haven to Philadelphia, and one flight on Saturdays from New Haven to Charlotte. Airport proponents, including local business leaders, argue that a longer runway will enable the airport to attract more flights and in the process boost the local economy. Opponents argue that expansion will harm the environment, plague the neighborhood with more noise, and in the end fail to boost the economy; and that airport will end up under water, anyway, due to climate-change-fueled rising sea levels.