RIVERSIDE -- A Riverside County congressman called today on the head of the Federal Aviation Administration to keep Riverside Municipal Airport's air traffic controllers in their seats as the agency prepares to furlough thousands of personnel under the federal sequestration plan.

"While I recognize that difficult decisions must be made, I encourage you to reconsider the way in which the FAA implements these cuts and urge you to keep the Riverside air traffic control tower, located in my district, open and operating," Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, wrote in a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.

Huerta is a Riverside native and graduate of UC Riverside.

"For a number of reasons, the Riverside control tower is critical to air safety in Riverside County," Takano said. "The Riverside area conducts nearly 80,000 flying operations each year and has four active flight schools. Additionally, the Riverside airport is only 12 miles away from March Air Reserve Base ... (and) several arrival routes into Los Angeles International Airport fly over Riverside."

The airport's tower staff contracts with the FAA under the Contract Tower Program, which encompasses 47,000 air traffic controllers nationwide. According to Takano, 75 percent of the program will be impacted by sequestration, resulting in the temporary closure of 173 control Advertisement

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The number of controllers who staff Riverside's airport is unclear. Calls to Reston, Va.-based Serco Inc., the federal contractor that employs them, were not immediately returned.

Takano said closing the tower would further add to the regional economy's woes.

"Already, Riverside County's unemployment rate stands far above the national average at more than 11 percent," the congressman said. "In addition, 80 percent of controllers in the Riverside tower are veterans. My constituents, especially those who have risked their lives to protect this country, do not deserve to bear the burden of the sequester."

The U.S. Department of Transportation, like most federal agencies, is currently operating on a congressionally approved continuing resolution -- not a formal budget -- due to persistent disagreements among lawmakers and the president about spending.

Sequestration kicked in because Democratic and Republican lawmakers could not reach a compromise on spending as laid out in the Budget Control Act of 2011. About $85 billion in cuts -- 2 percent of the roughly $3.4 trillion in outlays for the current fiscal year -- are being implemented.

The cumulative federal deficit from the last four fiscal years is in excess of $4 trillion, according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.