WASHINGTON The FAA would pay for all of its operations with tax revenues held in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund if President Clinton's proposed Fiscal 2000 transportation budget were enacted. The budget proposal also calls for phasing out many of the excise taxes that replenish the trust fund, replacing them with user fees as the FAA becomes “a more efficient, service-based organization.”

LOS ANGELES The sample return portion of the Deep Space-4 comet-lander mission will not be flown due to the higher level of cost required to ensure a strong probability of mission success, according to project officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

WASHINGTON The U.S. Air Force has canceled contracts with TRW and Boeing to build and orbit test satellites for the missile-tracking Space-based Infrared System-Low (SBIRS-Low). The combined value of those contracts was $832 million, the Pentagon told Congress last week.