Ensure Aviation Agency Is Vigilant
By The IntelligencerAviation safety should be a nonpartisan concern in Washington, D.C. - and, at least in Congress, that apparently is the case. What is troubling about the issue is that lawmakers believe they need to force the Federal Aviation Administration to implement needed reforms.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is promoting a bill they say is needed to force the FAA to do its job. They cite two concerns: complacency on FAA safety oversight of airlines - and relationships between agency officials and airlines that sometimes are too close.
Democrats and Republicans involved in the campaign want to force the FAA to establish an independent Aviation Safety Whistleblower Investigation Office to probe complaints about safety.
They also want to end the FAA's practice of allowing airlines to choose which agency inspectors will check their operations. To lessen the threat of too-close relationships between FAA officials and airlines, the lawmakers want a regular rotation of maintenance inspectors every five years - and a two-year delay between the time FAA officials leave the agency and the time they take jobs with the airlines.
A variety of other provisions are included in the bill, but you get the idea: The lawmakers want to force the FAA to make airline customers' safety - not airlines' profits - its top priority.
Members of Congress who have signed on to the campaign have good reason to wonder about the FAA's objectivity. The agency itself provided it several months ago when it refused initially to release contents of an airline safety report to the public. When the report came out, it cited several items of concern.
An old truism among bureaucrats in Washington is that Congress may from time to time interfere with them - but their agencies will be around long after most lawmakers retire. That's true enough - but the FAA needs to be reminded that Congress still is capable of making the agency do its job.
