GAO: Electric Propulsion Standards Work Stalled by Bureaucracy Cuts

A May 2027 statutory deadline for updating airworthiness standards for electric aircraft engines is in jeopardy after the Trump Administration’s drive to reduce the federal bureaucracy sidelined the advisory body Congress tasked with the work, a government watchdog reported on Wednesday.

In a report mandated by Section 1012 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the FAA cannot act on a separate provision of the same law, Section 956, requiring it to modernize airworthiness standards for electric and hybrid-electric engines and propellers. The FAA had planned to task the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) with that work, but the committee lost its members in August 2025 as part of a government-wide effort to dissolve and reconstitute federal advisory committees under a Trump administration executive order targeting what the White House described as “unnecessary bureaucracy.”

According to a notice published in the Federal Register, the FAA solicited nominations for new ARAC members in September with a deadline of Oct. 20, 2025. However, the Secretary of Transportation has yet to formally appoint new members, leaving the committee unable to accept any tasks. The FAA intends to address the electric propulsion standards requirement once appointments are made, the GAO notes, but has set no expected time frame.

The ARAC situation adds to what the GAO describes as an already slow-moving certification picture; the FAA has not issued a type certificate for any crewed electric aircraft, though the agency has been evaluating applications for electric propulsion certification since 2018. Of 23 such projects in the FAA’s pipeline, only the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) designs from Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation have received special class airworthiness criteria, a prerequisite step in the certification process.

Workforce shortfalls compound the picture. According to the GAO report, the FAA’s East and West Certification Branches were short a combined eight full-time employees experienced in electric propulsion work as of July 2025. However, agency officials told the watchdog that the gap was not affecting certification progress as of two months ago. A 2021 GAO recommendation that the FAA conduct quantitative skill gap assessments across all mission-critical occupations remains unaddressed.

Beta Technologies, whose eVTOL and conventional electric airplane are among the products awaiting certification, identified the FAA’s staff availability as a factor that could affect its ability to meet certification targets, according to its November initial public offering document, which the GAO cited in its report.

On infrastructure, the report found that only 47 U.S. airports had identified electric aircraft charging stations in their airport layout plans as of December, most of them part of Beta Technologies’ charging network, and that most airports remain in the planning and information-gathering stages.