666, baby! The mark of the beast.
I missed this when it happened last week, but it’s never too late to comment… The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board won’t let a little thing like a new law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama encroach upon its autonomy. The board, which oversees management of the extension of Metro rail to Dulles airport, has retained legal council to resist increasing the size of the board from 13 seats to 17.
According to Charles Snelling, chairman of the airports authority board, the law is not operable until Virginia and the District approve changes to the “governing MWAA compact.” That comes by way of Dana Hedgpeth, the Washington Post‘s Dr. Gridlock.
Therefore, said Snelling in a letter to Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-10, who authored the bill, the board will not seat two new board members appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell last month. Wolf’s bill added two new seats for Virginia, and one a piece for Maryland and Washington, D.C. Wolf had argued that Virginia was under-represented on the board, which controlled not only Dulles and Reagan airports but the state-built Dulles Toll Road.
“They’re ruining the credibility of the airports authority by fighting this,” Wolf told Hedgpeth.”They’re ultimately going to lose. They’re just dragging this thing out.”
I’m amazed that this story isn’t far bigger. Maybe there’s a legal case to be made for Snelling’s position, but the MWAA is definitely coming across as combative and recalcitrant. The board opposed Wolf’s bill from the beginning, and this latest gambit looks like more foot dragging. Add to the MWAA’s legal resistance the lack of transparency in other areas — which I hope to find time to blog about in the future — and the authority comes across as an alien, undemocratic and oppressive beast that must be brought to heel.
— JAB
