Faa Modernization And Safety Improvement Act

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently undertaking a broad program known as Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to develop, introduce, and certify new technologies into the National Airspace System. NextGen is a fundamentally transformative change that is being implemented incrementally over a period of many years. Currently, the FAA is putting into place the foundation that provides support for the future building blocks of a fully operational NextGen. NextGen is a challenging undertaking that includes ground systems, avionics installed in a wide range of aircraft, and procedures to take advantage of the new technology. Transformation in the Air assesses the FAA's plan for research on methods and procedures to improve both confidence in and the timeliness of certification of new technologies for their introduction into the National Airspace System. This report makes recommendations to include both ground and air elements and document the plan's relationship to the other activities and procedures required for certification and implementation into the National Airspace System.

Contents: (1) Background; (2) Legislative Status; (3) Proposed Funding Authorization Levels; (4) Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act: Budgetary Effects Determination; (5) Aviation System Finance; (6) Airport Financing; (7) Spending Guarantee Mechanisms; (8) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Management and Organizational Issues; (9) System Capacity; (10) Aviation Safety; (11) Environmental and Energy Issues; (12) Airline Industry Issues; (13) Airline Passenger Rights Issues. Charts and tables.

" Among its responsibilities for aviation safety, FAA issues certificates for new aircraft and parts, and grants approvals for changes to air operations and aircraft, based on federal aviation regulations. Various studies, GAO's prior work, and industry stakeholders have raised questions about the efficiency of FAA's certification and approval processes, as well as the consistency of its staff in interpreting aviation regulations. Over time, FAA has implemented efforts to address these issues, but they persist as FAA faces greater industry demand and its overall workload has increased. The 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act required FAA to work with industry to resolve these issues. In response, FAA chartered two committees-one to address certification and approval processes and another to address regulatory consistency-which recommended improvements in 2012. In 2013, FAA published an implementation plan for addressing the certification and approval process recommendations and promised to publish an implementation plan for addressing the regulatory consistency recommendations at a later date. This testimony provides information on FAA's progress in implementing the (1) certification and approval process recommendations and (2) regulatory consistency recommendations. It also discusses future challenges industry stakeholders believe FAA will face in implementing these recommendations"

The commercial space launch industry has evolved and moved further toward space tourism. Commercial space tourism promises to make human space travel available to the public for the first time. In addition, NASA plans to use private companies to transport cargo, and eventually personnel, to the International Space Station after NASA retires the space shuttle later in 2011. The FAA oversees the safety of commercial space launches, licensing and monitoring the safety of such launches and of commercial spaceports, and promotes the industry. This testimony addresses: (1) recent industry trends; (2) FAA's related budget request for FY 2012; and (3) challenges that FAA and industry faces. Illustrations. This is a print on demand report.