The push to give the FAA near-term programmatic and funding stability appears set to get underway in the coming days with both U.S. House and Senate versions of five-year reauthorization proposals.
The House version, generated by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, was officially unveiled June 9. As of late June 12, the Senate had yet to take the wraps off its proposal, but Politico obtained and made available a version of the text being circulated. The publication reported that both bills could be formally rolled out for debate as soon as this week.
The bills take aim at broad organizational issues as well as specific items. The House bill would tighten qualifications for being eligible to serve as administrator, prohibiting current or former military members from the job and mandating experience in aviation or a field directly related to it. The bill also would add a second deputy administrator, in charge of safety and operations. Such a move would lessen the disruption on other career officials when an acting administrator is named; current acting FAA chief Billy Nolen was pulled up from his role as associate administrator of aviation safety, creating a chain reaction of interim changes down into that organization.
The bills also call for FAA to shutter its NextGen office by 2026 and either put the remaining programs into service or put them under another part of the agency, such as the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) William J. Hughes Technical Center. The Senate bill calls for the NextGen Advisory Committee to stop work, while the House bill sees the committee as working with ATO.
The House bill proposes allowing an additional 150 hr. of experience in a state-of-the-art full-flight flight simulator to count toward the qualifications required to obtain an airline transport pilot (ATP) certificate. This would be in addition to 100 hr. already permitted in either a full-flight simulator or approved flight-training device.
Both bills would mandate annual, unannounced inspections of FAA-certified repair stations on foreign soil, new requirements for some of their employees, and new reporting requirements by airlines that use them. Similar proposals have been floated several times on the House side with strong backing by labor unions that generally oppose the offshoring of maintenance work, but 2023 is the first that a similar push has gained traction in the Senate. Industry groups, led by the Aeronautical Repair Station Association, oppose such moves, citing added burdens to affected shops without evidence of any potential safety benefits. FAA-issued foreign repair station certificates are usually reviewed and renewed every two years.
The current, five-year reauthorization bill expires at the end of September. Both Democrats and Republicans have signaled that avoiding temporary extensions by getting a bill in place before October is among their near-term priorities.
“I am pleased to see a bipartisan FAA reauthorization bill coming out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and have appreciated the opportunity to work with Chairman [Sam] Graves (R-Mo.), Ranking Member [Rick] Larsen (D-Wash.), and Chairman [Garrett] Graves (R-La.) on this transformative bill,” subcommittee ranking member Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said. “If we stay on track, this will be the first time we pass the five-year bill on time, and I look forward to working together to advance this bill by the August recess.”
Editors note: This story was updated to correct Rep. Steve Cohen's party affiliation and title.
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