Story ID: 
House Releases Sweeping FAA Reauthorization Package
By: Kerry Lynch
Caption: The just-introduced House FAA reauthorization bill looks to address many key issues in charter, business aviation, and general aviation.
Word Count: 559
The leadership of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) and aviation subcommittee unveiled their nearly 800-page FAA reauthorization package today, addressing further FAA reforms, enhanced aviation safety, general aviation, workforce growth, and airport infrastructure support, among other issues.
Importantly, the bill, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, would reauthorize the FAA’s operating authority for five years, providing continuity at an agency that is undergoing a transition after several tumultuous years. Congress is facing a September 30 deadline to complete work on a reauthorization package before the current FAA operating authority expires.
As promised by T&I Chairman Sam Graves (R-Missouri), the bill has an entire title dedicated to general aviation—a first in a reauthorization bill—with measures addressing everything from expanding BasicMed and data privacy to protecting GA airports from closure and ADS-B incentives.
Further, the bill takes aim at one of the chief complaints from the business and general aviation community: a lack of FAA resources to timely address certification, inspection, check airman availability, and other necessary services. Measures touch upon Part 135 check airman reform as well as the air carrier certification backlog and policy consistencies, among other areas.
Another title is squarely focused on growing that talent pipeline for the aviation workforce, addressing development, training, and retention.
Perhaps underscoring the importance to the committee, the bill’s first title is not only dedicated to the actual authorization of the agency but the reform of it as well. Other areas are dedicated to airport infrastructure and myriad provisions covering aviation safety, including one addressing Part 135 flight and duty time.
Another key part of the bill is dedicated to “aerospace innovation” that looks to help safely foster advanced air mobility and other such emerging technologies. Passenger protections and a range of other measures, including those affecting the National Transportation Safety Board, were also included.
“For over a century, the U.S. has led the world in aviation safety and innovation, but our ‘Gold Standard’ status is being threatened by increasing global competition, rapid developments in technology, a shortage of aviation professionals, and FAA’s own inefficiency,” Graves said in introducing the reauthorization package. “Our bipartisan legislation will improve critical infrastructure for airports of all sizes, streamline the FAA bureaucracy, strengthen the nation’s general aviation sector, encourage the more rapid deployment of safe technological innovations, and address workforce challenges throughout the aviation system.”
“The Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act is a good faith bipartisan compromise that creates a safer, cleaner, greener, and more accessible U.S. aviation system," said T&I Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-Washington). "It transitions the nation to more sustainable fuels, makes a historic investment in the resiliency of our country’s airports, implements key safety measures, and bolsters accessibility and consumer protections for all passengers...This is also a jobs bill: it strengthens and diversifies the aviation workforce, recognizing that it is critical to our nation’s economic success. Moreover, it ensures the safe integration of new airspace entrants into U.S. skies to advance American innovation and cultivate good-paying jobs.”