John Murtha Airport Lives On

ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports: The Senate today rejected a measure to strip $1.4 million in federal funding for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Murtha Airport was the subject of a World News “your money” story in April and has become a symbol of government waste derided as an “airport for nobody.”   Murtha Airport has an average of just 20 passengers a day, but it has received nearly $200 million in federal money over the last 15 years (including $800,000 in stimulus funds), almost all of it because of its powerful namesake, Democratic Representative John Murtha.   The measure, which was rejected by a vote of 43 to 53, would have stripped the annual $1.4 million subsidy the airport gets under the FAA’s Essential Air Service program for its three flights a day to Washington Dulles airport.  Those flights to Washington, by the way, are the only commercial flights from the Murtha Airport.