Greenhouse gas emissions from domestic commercial aviation have fallen 13 percent between 2000 and 2006, according to recently released figures from the Environmental Protection Agency. I blogged about a USA Today article on this report last week, and I finally tracked down the original, cleverly obscured on the EPA website. (The aviation-relevant sections are here [...]
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According to an article in USA Today, an EPA report indicates that the U.S. commercial aviation industry, despite having expanded substantially since 2000, has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 13 percent. I’m trying to track down the EPA report (which is not readily available online) to probe these numbers further.
These findings dovetail with [...]
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I recently recorded a podcast with Addison Schonland of IAG. Click here to listen!
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At 2:30, the Senate voted down a cloture motion on the FAA reauthorization bill amendments offered by Senator Jay Rockefeller (see here). Majority Leader Harry Reid deployed a procedural tactic to prevent any amendments he didn’t approve, and, as promised, Republicans mustered forty-two votes (two more than necessary) to keep the Senate from ending debate [...]
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The Senate amendments to the FAA reauthorization bill include Section 714, which updates the law on “transporting musical instruments,” which is clearly an important issue for our elected representatives. I bet you’re on tenterhooks waiting to read this groundbreaking legislation. Here are some highlights from among the bureaucratic tedium:
“An air carrier providing air transportation shall [...]
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The House’s version of the FAA reauthorization bill has been on the Senate floor for the past few weeks, but it’s currently stalled (although scheduled for a cloture vote today, May 6, which if passed would move it forward for consideration by the full Senate without more amendments or if lost would hold up the [...]
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Cliff Winston and Bob Crandall of Brookings have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today on airline safety. They argue that “the FAA needs a cozy relationship with the airlines. This is because the agency needs to at least give the appearance that it is having a significant impact on safety.” They place the [...]
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As I’ve written before, the failure of the FAA in the Southwest Airlines case and elsewhere seems to stem from a personnel problem. The safety inspection chain of command at the agency ignored and abetted an inspector who was consistently neglecting policies and procedures. This is not an indictment of the FAA’s collaborative approach to [...]
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According to an AP report, the agency is reassigning Southwest Region Flight Standards Director Thomas Stuckey to an administrative position without safety oversight responsibilities.
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On Thursday night I posted the narrative that emerged about the Southwest Airlines-FAA maintenance debacle. Now I’d like to post some of my observations and offer some policy lessons from the April 3 hearing. You should read the Thursday post before you look at this one.
The “collaborative” relationship between airlines and regulators doesn’t have to [...]
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