[11/21/03]U.S. Sen. Trent Lott said Thursday he would consider backing federal funding to renovate Vicksburg Municipal Airport if the local government asks for such funding.

In separate comments on the federal government’s role in prekindergarten education, Lott said he does not agree with President Bush’s proposal to shift more responsibility for Head Start funding to state governments.

Lott, a Republican and former majority leader, made his comments from his Washington office in a wide-ranging telephone interview with The Vicksburg Post.

“Once the local people decide what they want to do, we will be able to work with them,” Lott said of Vicksburg’s looming decision on which local airport to support or whether to provide funds to both.

Vicksburg Municipal, on U.S. 61 South, was taken off the national inventory of the Federal Aviation Administration, making it ineligible for grants, after Vicksburg and three other local governments accepted a 90 percent federal match to build Vicksburg Tallulah Regional at Mound 20 years ago.

Reversing a 1998 decision by a previous city board to close the city airport in favor of VTR, two of Vicksburg’s three elected officials voted this month to seek state grant funds to renovate the airport so it could remain open. Gov. Ronnie Musgrove has indicated support for $650,000 in state money for runway work, but a study by airport supporters shows more than $3 million in improvements would be advisable over the next few years.

The airport wrangling goes back 25 years, including a five-year court battle that ended with the state Supreme Court agreeing the city has the power to close Vicksburg Municipal, also known as VKS, if and when it desires. But plaintiffs in the court case, including major employer LeTourneau Inc., have strongly indicated they want VKS to stay open, saying more than 1,000 jobs may be at stake.

“We work on that program all the time,” Lott said of the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program, which allocates money to facilities it lists as eligible. He added that he had helped several airports across the state obtain funding.

“There’s a long list of towns trying to get the Mississippi portion of AIP money,” Lott said.

A former Senate majority leader, Lott is chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee of the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. He also chairs the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and serves on its Select Committee on Intelligence and Select Committee on the Library.

Lott was also asked to comment on Gov.-elect Haley Barbour’s recent statement that Mississippi lacks funding for prekindergarten education. The senator said he would support expansion of the program as it is currently organized, with funding going directly from the federal level to local organizations.

Bush has proposed testing a reorganization of the program that would reroute the funding flow to some state governments. His proposal would give participating states the responsibility and authority to integrate their own early-childhood-education programs with those of the federal program in exchange for meeting certain accountability requirements.

“I don’t support the Bush administration’s proposal to turn it over to be a state-run program,” Lott said of Head Start. “We should continue to work with the states, but keep the structure pretty much like it is.”

Head Start was instituted in 1965 to help poor children get prepared to begin first grade.

Lott also commented on the current Senate fight over the confirmation of four of Bush’s federal-judiciary nominees, among whom are Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering.

The nominees have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee but some Senate Democrats have used their filibuster power to block votes by the full Senate on whether to confirm their nominations.

Lott has recommended Bush use his power to appoint Pickering to the court to which he has been nominated, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, during a Congressional recess.

The senator said Thursday that he believed the Democrats’ current filibuster attempt would set a bad precedent for future nominees. The Constitution calls for a simple majority to confirm a nominee, but the Democrats’ plan increases the number to 60 of the 100-member Senate to break a filibuster.

Republicans took the rare step of keeping the Senate in session through nearly 40 straight hours last week to call attention to the issue. Democrats maintained their filibuster despite floor votes showing more than 50 senators favored taking action on at least one of the judges’ nominations.

“If we don’t stop it now, that will be the precedent,” Lott said of the Democrats’ effectively raising the number of votes required for confirmation. “I do not believe that’s what our forefathers intended.”