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The Senate version of the FAA reauthorization legislation (S. 1451) passed the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in July and the full Senate is expected to consider the bill when it returns in September. The FAA reauthorization bill contains numerous provisions of importance to PASS; however, there is language in the Senate version that seeks to contract out work performed by FAA employees. Section 510 of the legislation promotes the contracting out the development of flight procedures and flight inspection programs, work that is currently performed successfully by the FAA Aviation System Standards (AVN) workforce.

S. 1451 contains two conflicting provisions regarding the acceleration of the NextGen initiatives Area Navigation (RNAV) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP). Section 510 pushes for increased third-party involvement by mandating that the FAA allow third parties the ability to design, flight check, and implement public-use RNP procedures. The language also outlines an arbitrary number of procedures (200) to justify contracting out this work. PASS and the AVN workforce understand that acceleration is needed, but we are extremely concerned that Congress would even consider inserting language that would promote the contracting out of this inherently governmental work simply because private industry wants the work. In fact, even the FAA has recognized that the inclusion of language to expand the use of third parties will not necessarily lead to an increase in procedures development. In addition, the language contained in Section 510 conflicts with Section 314, which includes procedures and processes for accelerating and achieving RNAV and RNP and incorporates a cost-benefit analysis for third-party usage. PASS fully supports the language in Section 314 and finds it to be mutually beneficial to all stakeholders involved in NextGen. The FAA and its highly qualified AVN employees, not Congress, should be the ones to decide the most efficient, operationally beneficial and safest way to develop, perform quality assurance and flight validation, implement, and maintain Performance-Based Navigation procedures.

We ask that you take a few minutes to send the message below to both of your senators. Feel free to personalize your message by expanding upon the text below. We also ask that you take advantage of the August recess by scheduling an appointment with your local Senate offices to discuss this critical issue.