The arrival of the Trump administration quickly brought the administrative disruption promised during the president’s campaign. The White House effort to “Flood the Zone” with executive action has the public, media, and particularly U.S. federal employees off balance.
The confusion has caused multiple missteps. According to Politico, a “rogue” FAA employee sent an internal email prohibiting participation in stakeholder advisory committees. The agency corrected the communication, explaining: “FAA employees will continue to attend meetings and engage with stakeholders on safety related matters, and we will make sure that commitment is clear to everyone in the agency.”
Still, U.S. aviation regulators have become a bit skittish about engaging with the public. Given issues with communication already observed by industry – and fought by ARSA – it’s a frustrating situation. While agency mandated industry meetings may continue, agency personnel have paused participation in planned and regular external meetings, international engagement, and signing important policy like the long-expected change 10 to the U.S./EU Maintenance Annex Guidance.
As the administrative dust settles, the association will stay the regulatory course by focusing attention on the Jan. 31 executive order “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.” The order more than doubles down on the “two for one” policy of the president’s first term by requiring executive agencies “identify at least 10 existing regulations” for repeal for every new one issued.
ARSA’s team will keep track of whether any existing regulations “identified” for repeal is removed, but in the meantime the association is focused on the order’s definition of regulation or rule that gets to the fat in the bureaucracy this administration is trying to irradicate.
The executive order brings scrutiny to every “agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or to describe the procedure or practice requirements of an agency, including, without limitation, regulations, rules, memoranda, administrative orders, guidance documents, policy statements, and interagency agreements, regardless of whether the same were enacted through the processes in the Administrative Procedure Act.”
No more regulation by orders, policy, operations specifications, or simple fiat. This definition supports the requirement that “synthesizing” regulatory standards with associated guidance. ARSA members and the association’s team have long battled the FAA’s efforts to legislate by guidance by enforcing the language of internal orders or external advisories above and beyond the minimum standards of 14 CFR.
In the “two for one” era, ARSA questioned a similar executive order’s wisdom based on the APA’s requirements for notice and comment required to repeal a rule. This time around, the association will use the administration’s directive to ensure guidance documents do not conflict with the rules.
