The FAA extension bill is drawing fire from repair station industry advocates as an example of the “bad art of the backroom deal,” for provisions involving mandatory drug and alcohol testing and background checks of repair station employees.
Passed by the House Monday and now awaiting Senate action, the bill would extend the FAA’s operating authority by 14 months to Sept. 30, 2017, and contains a limited number of aviation safety and security measures. Among those is a measure calling on the FAA to release a proposed rulemaking within 90 days and a final rule within a year for a mandatory Part 145 repair station employee drug and alcohol testing program that is consistent with the laws where the country is located. The FAA extension also calls for mandatory pre-employment background investigations for all Part 145 repair station employees performing safety-sensitive functions. Both measures apply to employees working on Part 121 airline aircraft.
The Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) objected to the measures, calling the deadlines for a rule mandating drug and alcohol testing unrealistic. The “arbitrary deadlines…will result in a hurried rulemaking with detrimental effects on the international aviation community, including the U.S. air carriers and the business and general aviation operators that benefit from the safe and efficient worldwide maintenance network,” ARSA said.
As for the mandatory pre-employment background checks, ARSA said, “This would significantly expand current Transportation Security Administration requirements, lacks a safety and security justification and is contrary to accepted risk-based oversight principles.”
Calling both measures “solutions in search of problems that will drive up costs on aviation maintenance companies with no safety benefit,” ARSA expressed frustration that little can be done to halt the measures. “Congress has put itself in a ‘must-pass’ situation, so those opposed to the repair station provisions have no way to protect maintenance providers without voting to shut down the agency.”