LAS VEGAS — Leaders from two leading business aviation industry groups say the industry is receiving mixed messages from Washington, D.C. Ed Bolen, President and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association, and Peter Bunce, president and CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, spoke Monday at the NBAA’s annual meeting and convention in Las Vegas. The convention, held through Oct. 12, is expected to draw 23,000 attendees and about 1,100 exhibits. Bolen and Bunce noted that while President Barack Obama has assailed corporate jet users and called for a user fee for jet operations, congressmen and senators show support for the industry by joining caucuses in the U.S. House and Senate. In addition, more than 30 states have passed resolutions recognizing the importance of general aviation in terms of jobs and economic activity. The message that business aviation is valuable to individual companies and the overall economy may not be getting through to the Obama administration, but it is gaining traction by other lawmakers, Bolen said. “We can refute the attack by gathering mayors, governors, congressman, senators, employees, labor unions and the CEOs to all say what we know — general aviation is a good industry,” Bolen said. In a June press conference, Obama singled out corporate jets six times and backed a proposal to extend depreciation on those aircraft to seven years from five years as a means to raise money to reduce the federal deficit. “When you are trying to increase jobs and exports and manufacturing and then attack the customers who use those products does not make sense,” Bunce said. The user fee the administration supports was a slippery slope that the general aviation industry did not want to go down, he said. The user fee would charge $100 for each turbine aircraft departure and bring in about $1.1 billion a year, Bunce and Bolen said. User fees have been detrimental to the development of general aviation in other parts of the world, Bunce said.