Members of the embattled board overseeing the multibillion-dollar Dulles Metrorail project said Wednesday that they will fight an attempt by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Virginia officials to gain more control over their panel. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority will oppose legislation introduced by Wolf that would allow Virginia officials to appoint more of the authority’s members and make it easier to replace authority members.
Wolf drafted the legislation in May after Northern Virginia officials were outraged by MWAA’s decision to build an underground Metro station at Washington Dulles International Airport even though it cost $330 million more than the aboveground station preferred by those local officials who would have paid for most of it. The authority has since reversed that decision.
Wolf’s bill would expand the board, allowing the Virginia governor to appoint nine members instead of five. The District and the federal government would each have three seats; Maryland would have two. Each jurisdiction also would be allowed to replace its board members before their terms expired.
MWAA Chairman Charles Snelling said the changes would destabilize a board trying to balance the needs of several jurisdictions.
“It really isn’t fair,” Snelling told The Washington Examiner. “The authority was set out in a very careful, thought-out balance with the various constituencies. Virginia does have a stake, but so does Washington and so does Maryland and so does the federal government.”
Snelling said the board would talk to “the various governors and senators and congressmen and friends of the authority” about opposing the bill.
A spokesman said Wolf would move forward despite MWAA’s opposition.
“This is being done at the request of the governor,” Wolf spokesman Dan Scandling said. “The goal here is to assure the interests of Virginians are protected.”
He noted that one member of the authority was allowed to cast a deciding vote on the authority’s new CEO even though that member had been under house arrest on the Ivory Coast at the time.
Wolf’s legislation is part of a transportation appropriations bill set to go before Congress later this year.
MWAA also received a report from project managers Wednesday saying the first phase of the Dulles project was still “on time and on budget,” despite Fairfax County auditors’ claims that the project could be as much as six months behind schedule.
Snelling said the “on time, on budget” claim was “beyond dispute.”
