    Aviation Rulemaking: Further Reform Is Needed to Address
    Long-standing Problems (09-JUL-01, GAO-01-821).

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) develops regulations to
    enhance aviation safety and security and to promote the efficient
    use of airspace. FAA's rulemaking is a complicated process
    intended to ensure that all aspects of any regulatory change are
    fully analyzed before the change goes into effect. Over the past
    40 years, numerous reports have documented problems in FAA's
    rulemaking efforts that have delayed the formulation and
    finalization of it rules. This report reviews FAA's rulemaking
    process. GAO reviewed 76 significant rules and found that FAA's
    rulemaking process varied widely. These rules constituted the
    majority of FAA's workload of significant rules from fiscal year
    1995 through fiscal year 2000. GAO found that FAA had initiated
    about 60 percent of the rulemaking projects by Congress and about
    a third of the rulemaking projects recommended by the National
    Transportation Safety Board within 6 months. However, for
    one-fourth of the mandates and one-third of the recommendations,
    at least five years passed before FAA initiated the process. Once
    the rule was formally initiated, FAA took a median time of two
    and a half years to proceed from formal initiation of the
    rulemaking process through publication of the final rule. In
    1998, FAA implemented reforms to improve the rulemaking process
    and shorten the time frames for finalizing rules. These reforms
    included establishing a steering committee and a rulemaking
    management council to improve management involvement in setting
    priorities and resolving policy issues. GAO found that after the
    reforms were implemented, the median time for reviewing and
    finalizing a rule increased. This suggests that the productivity
    of FAA's rulemaking process for significant rules decreased after
    FAA's reforms.
    -------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
    REPORTNUM:   GAO-01-821
        ACCNO:   A01381
      TITLE:     Aviation Rulemaking: Further Reform Is Needed to Address
                 Long-standing Problems
         DATE:   07/09/2001
      SUBJECT:   Airline regulation
    	     Commercial aviation
    	     Agency proceedings
    	     Air transportation operations
    	     Transportation safety
    	     FAA Core Compensation Plan
    	     FAA Flight Operational Quality Assurance
    	     Program

    	     FAA Integrated Rulemaking Management
    	     Information Systems

    	     National Performance Review
    	     Federal Agency Major Rules

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    GAO-01-821

    A

    Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on
    Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives

    July 2001 AVIATION RULEMAKING Further Reform Is Needed to Address Long-
    standing Problems

    GAO- 01- 821

    Letter 5 Executive Summary 6 Chapter 1 22 Introduction

    Federal Rulemaking Process Involves Common Steps and Documents 24 Prior
    Studies of Federal Rulemaking Have Found Similar and

    Persistent Problems 32 Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 35

    Chapter 2 39

    FAA Took Varying FAA Initiated Most Rulemaking in Response to Mandates and
    Safety Recommendations Within 2 Years 39

    Times to Complete Time FAA Took to Complete Steps in the Rulemaking Process

    Steps of the Varied 43

    Rulemaking Process, Time FAA Took to Finalize Rules After the Comment Period
    Was Comparable to That of Four Other Agencies 45

    Meeting Legislative FAA Met Legislative Requirements in Half or Less of Its
    Rulemaking

    Requirements in Efforts 46

    One- Half or Less of Cases

    Chapter 3 50

    FAA?s Reforms FAA?s 1998 Efforts to Improve Rulemaking Addressed Long-
    standing

    Problems 50 Addressed

    Other Federal Agencies Have Undertaken Reforms to Address Similar Long-
    standing

    Problems 54 Rulemaking Problems Despite Reforms, FAA?s Rulemaking Times Did
    Not Improve 56 but Did Not Reduce Rulemaking Times

    Chapter 4 63

    Incomplete Problems Related to Management Involvement Continued to Slow the
    Process 63

    Implementation of Problems in Process Administration Continued to Impair
    FAA's Reforms

    Rulemaking 73 Impaired Efforts to

    Human Capital Management Initiatives for Rulemaking Activities Were
    Overlooked 77 Address Long- standing

    Conclusions 79 Rulemaking Problems

    Recommendations 80 Agency Comments 82

    Appendixes Appendix I: Status of 76 Significant Rules in FAA?s Workload FY
    1995 - FY 2000 84 Appendix II: Survey of Federal Aviation Administration
    Rulemaking

    Participants 88 Appendix III: Status of FAA?s Rules Subject to 1996
    Reauthorization

    Act Requirement that Rules be Finalized Within 16 Months 96 Appendix IV:
    Status of Federal Aviation Administration?s Rules With

    Legislative Mandates (as of March 31, 2001) 98 Appendix V: Comments From the
    Department of Transportation 99 Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff
    Acknowledgments 103

    Tables Table 1: Key Roles and Responsibilities of Participants in FAA?s
    Rulemaking Process 31

    Table 2: Membership and Duties of FAA?s Rulemaking Management Groups 51
    Table 3: FAA?s System for Prioritizing Rulemaking Projects 52

    Figures Figure 1: Time Elapsed Between 20 Congressional Mandates and 12 NTSB
    Safety Recommendations and FAA?s Initiation of the Rulemaking Process 9

    Figure 2: Median Time FAA Took to Process Significant Proposed and Final
    Rules for Periods Before and Since FAA?s Reforms 11 Figure 3: Percentage of
    FAA?s Significant Proposed and Final Rules

    Published Before and Since FAA?s Reforms That Met Time Frames Suggested in
    FAA?s Reform Guidance 12

    Figure 4: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Establish Flight Duty and Rest
    Requirements for Flight Crew Members 23 Figure 5: FAA?s Rulemaking Process
    for Significant Rules 25 Figure 6: Number of FAA?s Rulemaking Entries Listed
    in the Unified Agenda, Fiscal Year 1995 Through Fiscal Year 2000 28

    Figure 7: Studies and Reports on FAA?s Rulemaking That Identified Common
    Problems 33 Figure 8: Time Elapsed Between 20 Congressional Mandates and

    12 NTSB Safety Recommendations and FAA?s Initiation of the Rulemaking
    Process 40 Figure 9: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Require Child
    Restraints on Aircraft 42 Figure 10: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to
    Revise Digital Flight Data Recorder Regulations for Boeing 737 Airplanes 43
    Figure 11: Percent of Significant Rules Finalized Within Certain Time

    Periods After the Close of the Public Comment Period by FAA and Other
    Selected Regulatory Agencies, Fiscal Years 1995- 2000 46 Figure 12: Case
    Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Prohibit Transportation

    of Oxygen Generators as Cargo in Aircraft 47 Figure 13: Case Study of FAA?s
    Rulemaking to Revise Procedures for

    Aircraft Registry 49 Figure 14: Median Time FAA Took to Process Significant
    Proposed and

    Final Rules for Periods Before and Since FAA?s Reforms 57 Figure 15: Median
    Time OST Took to Approve FAA?s Significant

    Proposed and Final Rules for Periods Before and Since FAA?s Reforms 58
    Figure 16: Median Time FAA?s Unpublished Significant Proposed and

    Final Rules Had Been in Process as of September 30, 1997, and September 30,
    2000 60 Figure 17: FAA?s Time Frames for Steps After Initiation of the

    Rulemaking Process 61 Figure 18: Percentage of FAA?s Significant Proposed
    and Final Rules

    Published Before and Since FAA?s Reforms That Met Time Frames Suggested in
    FAA?s Reform Guidance 62 Figure 19: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Revise
    Airport Security

    Rules 65 Figure 20: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Revise Commuter
    Operations and General Certification and Operations

    Requirements 67 Figure 21: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Govern Air
    Carriers' Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs 69

    Figure 22: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Revise Aircraft Repair Station
    Regulations 71 Figure 23: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Require
    Emergency

    Medical Equipment on Aircraft 72

    Abbreviations

    APHIS Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service APA Administrative
    Procedure Act DOT Department of Transportation EPA Environmental Protection
    Agency FAA Federal Aviation Administration FHA Federal Highway
    Administration FMCSA Federal Motor Carriers Safety Adminstration FDA Food
    and Drug Administration GAO General Accounting Office NHTSA National Highway
    Transportation Safety Administration NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking NTSB
    National Transportation Safety Board NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission OIG
    Office of the Inspector General OMB Office of Management and Budget OST
    Office of the Secretary of Transportation

    Lett er

    July 9, 2001 The Honorable John L. Mica Chairman, Subcommittee on Aviation
    Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure House of Representatives

    The Honorable John J. Duncan Jr. House of Representatives

    In response to your request to conduct a review of the Federal Aviation
    Administration?s (FAA) rulemaking process in order to identify ways to
    improve its efficiency, we established three research questions:

     What are the time frames for FAA?s rulemaking, including the time FAA took
    to initiate the rulemaking process in response to statutory requirements and
    safety recommendations and, once begun, to develop and publish significant
    rules?  What were the effects of FAA?s 1998 reforms on its process and on
    its time frames for completing rulemaking?

     How effective were FAA?s reform efforts in addressing the factors that
    affect the pace of the rulemaking process? This report contains
    recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation on steps that FAA can
    take to improve the timeliness of its rulemaking through better management
    of the process and its participants.

    As we agreed with your offices, unless you publicy announce the contents of
    this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 days
    from the date of this letter. We will then send copies to the Secretary of
    Transportation and the Administrator of FAA. We will also make copies
    available to others who request them.

    If you or your staff have any questions about this report or would like to
    discuss it further, I can be reached at (202) 512- 2834. Key contributors to
    this report are acknowledged in appendix VI.

    Gerald L. Dillingham, Director, Physical Infrastructure

    Executive Summary Purpose The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) develops
    regulations to

    enhance aviation safety and security and to promote the efficient use of
    airspace. In doing so, it must balance opposing pressures. On the one hand,
    the process of developing regulations, or rulemaking, is complex and time
    consuming. Because rules can have a significant impact on individuals,
    industries, the economy, and/ or the environment, proposed rules must be
    carefully considered before being finalized. Often, difficult policy issues
    must be resolved. On the other hand, threats to public safety and the rapid

    pace of technological development in the aviation industry demand timely
    action. Over the past 40 years, numerous reports have documented problems in
    FAA?s rulemaking efforts that have delayed the formulation and finalization
    of its rules.

    In light of the critical role of regulations in aviation safety and the
    longstanding nature of problems associated with FAA?s rulemaking process,
    the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation, House Committee on
    Transportation and Infrastructure asked GAO to conduct a review of FAA?s

    rulemaking process to identify ways to improve its efficiency. To meet this
    objective, GAO established three research questions in concert with the
    Chairman?s office:

     What are the time frames for FAA?s rulemaking, including the time FAA took
    to initiate the rulemaking process in response to statutory requirements and
    safety recommendations and, once begun, to develop and publish significant
    rules?  What were the effects of FAA?s 1998 reforms on its process and on
    its time frames for completing rulemaking?

     How effective were FAA?s reform efforts in addressing the factors that
    affect the pace of the rulemaking process? Background FAA?s rulemaking, like
    that of other federal agencies, is a complicated

    process intended to ensure that all aspects of any regulatory change are
    fully analyzed before the change goes into effect. A need for rulemaking can
    be identified internally, by one of FAA?s offices, or externally, by an
    outside source such as the Congress or the National Transportation Safety
    Board (NTSB), which issues mandates or recommendations, respectively,
    calling for rulemaking. When the Congress mandates rulemaking, FAA is
    required to initiate the process. When NTSB issues a recommendation, FAA

    studies the situation and decides whether to initiate the rulemaking
    process. Once FAA formally initiates rulemaking, each rule must be

    developed and published twice- first as a proposed rule and then as a final
    rule. In the proposed rule phase, the agency develops a proposed rule and
    publishes it in the Federal Register for public comment. During the comment
    period that follows, interested parties may submit written comments. When
    the comment period closes, FAA develops the final rule.

    Its procedures for finalizing the rule include examining the comments,
    making changes it deems appropriate, and publishing the final rule in the

    Federal Register for incorporation into the Code of Federal Regulations.
    Federal agencies? ?notice and comment? process is governed primarily by the
    Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, but it must also follow additional
    statutory requirements as well as executive orders issued by the president.

    FAA?s responsibilities include developing rules that cover a wide range of
    aviation activities, including many aspects of commercial and general
    aviation. The critical nature of FAA?s rules in setting standards for public
    safety has led the Congress to be particularly concerned with FAA?s
    efficiency in developing rules. Most recently, in response to concerns about
    the pace of FAA?s rulemaking, the Congress enacted legislation in 1996 that
    established, among other things, a 16- month time frame for the finalization
    of FAA?s rules after the close of the public comment period.

    Numerous studies of FAA?s rulemaking procedures have identified common
    factors that delay the promulgation of rules. In this report, GAO groups
    these factors into three main areas of concern- management involvement,
    administration of the rulemaking process (process administration), and human
    capital. Earlier studies suggest that problems related to management
    involvement occurred because of changing priorities within

    and across departments, late or otherwise inappropriate timing of management
    decisionmaking, and an unwillingness to delegate authority. Difficulties in
    administrating the rulemaking process occurred because employees did not
    possess a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities and
    because information management systems were not as useful as they could have
    been. Finally, human capital problems arose because FAA lacked a formal
    system for selecting and training its rulemaking staff and did not link
    incentives to performance. The agency

    undertook a major reform effort in 1998 to address these problems and
    respond to the time frames the Congress had established in 1996.

    To measure the overall impact of the 1998 reforms, GAO discussed the reforms
    with FAA staff and management and created a database of 76 significant
    rules. These rules constituted the majority of FAA?s workload of significant
    rules from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2000. In

    developing the database, to determine the dates that rulemaking projects
    were initiated, GAO used the dates recorded in FAA?s information system. For
    the dates of publication of proposed and final rules, GAO used the dates of
    publication in the Federal Register. Using the database, GAO performed
    statistical analyses of the time frames for the rulemaking process in the 3
    years before and after the reform was implemented in

    1998. GAO discussed rulemaking reform with officials from other federal
    regulatory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
    the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other operating

    administrations within the Department of Transportation (DOT), as well as
    with FAA rulemaking officials and other stakeholders in FAA?s rulemaking
    process, including representatives of NTSB, the Office of the Secretary of
    Transportation (OST), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). To
    obtain more detailed information and employees? opinions on the effects of
    the reform on FAA?s rulemaking process, GAO developed case studies on
    specific rules and surveyed 134 FAA employees who had served as rulemaking
    team members on significant rules. GAO supplemented its survey results with
    semistructured interviews of rulemaking team members involved in four
    rulemaking projects. Results in Brief The time frames for key steps in FAA?s
    rulemaking process varied widely for the 76 significant rules we reviewed.
    These rules constituted the

    majority of FAA?s workload of significant rules from fiscal year 1995
    through fiscal year 2000. FAA initiated about 60 percent of rulemaking
    projects mandated by the Congress and about a third of rulemaking projects
    recommended by NTSB within 6 months of the mandate or recommendation.
    However, for one- fourth of the mandates and one- third of the
    recommendations, at least 5 years passed before FAA initiated the

    process, as shown in figure 1.

    Figure 1: Time Elapsed Between 20 Congressional Mandates and 12 NTSB Safety
    Recommendations and FAA?s Initiation of the Rulemaking Process Note: The
    time until initiation was measured from the date the legislation containing
    a mandate was enacted or the date a safety recommendation was issued to the
    initiation date identified in FAA?s rulemaking information system. No rules
    in response to congressional mandates were initiated from 24 months up to 60
    months after the mandate. Because of rounding, totals may not add up to 100
    percent.

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA data. Once the rule was formally initiated,
    FAA took a median time of about 2 � years to proceed from formal initiation
    of the rulemaking process through publication of the final rule, a process
    it completed for 29 significant rules from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal
    year 2000. While FAA completed this process within 2 � years for half of its
    significant rules, the agency took 10 years or more to move from formal
    initiation of the rulemaking process through publication of the final rule
    for 6 of the 29 rules. FAA?s median pace for finalizing a rule after the
    close of the public comment period- about 15 months- was comparable to that
    of four other federal regulatory agencies we selected, ranging from about 1�
    months to more than 6 years. Nonetheless, since the Congress enacted
    legislation in October 1996 that

    established a 16- month time frame for the finalization of significant rules
    after the close of the public comment period, FAA had missed the deadline
    for more than half of its rulemaking projects. The reforms FAA implemented
    in 1998 included establishing a rulemaking steering committee and a
    rulemaking management council to improve management involvement in setting
    priorities and resolving policy issues. FAA also created a rulemaking manual
    to provide consistent guidance for rulemaking staff and establish suggested
    time frames for steps in the process, implemented a new automated system to
    track and manage rulemaking documents, and established two new teams to
    monitor, evaluate, and improve the administration of the rulemaking process.

    Human capital management reforms- such as continuing training, skills
    assessment, performance measurement, and the development of a rewards
    system- were considered but not implemented. The median times FAA took to
    proceed from initiation of rulemaking through the release of the proposed
    rule for public comment (the proposed rule phase) and to finalize the rule
    after the close of the public comment period (the final rule phase),

    both increased in the 3- year period after FAA implemented its 1998 reforms,
    even though FAA published fewer rules during the latter period, as shown in
    figure 2. These comparisons suggest that the productivity of FAA?s
    rulemaking process for significant rules decreased after FAA?s reform.

    Figure 2: Median Time FAA Took to Process Significant Proposed and Final
    Rules for Periods Before and Since FAA?s Reforms

    Note: These processing times do not include the public comment period. One
    final rule that was completed in fiscal year 1998 was included in fiscal
    1997 in this chart because it was completed prior to FAA?s reforms in
    January 1998. The median may not equal the arithmetic average (mean).
    Because the mean gives greater influence to extreme values in assessing
    processing time for rulemaking, we elected to present median values.

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA and Federal Register data.

    As part of its rulemaking reforms, FAA established its own time frames for
    the process: 450 days to proceed from initiation of rulemaking through the
    release of the proposed rule for public comment (the proposed rule phase)
    and 310 days to finalize the rule after the close of the public comment
    period (the final rule phase). Although these time frames were established
    as part of FAA?s reforms and were therefore not an applicable standard for
    rulemaking efforts prior to the reforms, nevertheless, we found that FAA met
    these time frames less often after the reforms than before them. For
    example, it met its time frame for proceeding from the initiation of the
    rulemaking process to the release of the proposed rule for public comment in
    47 percent of projects in the 3- year period prior to the 1998 reforms but

    in only 19 percent of projects in the 3- year period following the 1998
    reforms, as shown in figure 3. Figure 3: Percentage of FAA?s Significant
    Proposed and Final Rules Published

    Before and Since FAA?s Reforms That Met Time Frames Suggested in FAA?s
    Reform Guidance

    Note: The time frames suggested in FAA?s guidance are 450 days (about 15
    months) for developing proposed rules and 310 days (about 10 months and 10
    days) for final rules. Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA data.

    FAA?s limited implementation of the reforms did not solve long- standing
    problems, as indicated both by the lack of improvement in the time required
    to complete the rulemaking process and by the agency?s inability to
    consistently meet the time frames imposed by statute or its own guidance.
    Many of the problems that have slowed rulemaking at the agency remain.
    External pressures- such as highly- publicized accidents, recommendations by
    NTSB, and congressional mandates- as well as internal pressures, such as
    changes in management?s emphasis continue to add to and shift the agency?s
    priorities. For some rules, difficult policy issues have continued to remain
    unresolved late in the process.

    Management has retained several layers of internal review. Process
    administration remains an area of concern. Rulemaking participants are not
    clear about job responsibilities, the updated information system contained
    consistent data on only the highest priority rules, and vital parts of the
    continuous improvement program have not yet materialized. Finally, FAA has
    not implemented recommended human capital management

    initiatives, rulemaking participants undergo limited training, and their
    performance is not tied to a consistent evaluation or rewards system. This
    report contains recommendations designed to improve the efficiency of FAA?s
    rulemaking through, among other things, more timely and effective
    participation of management in decisionmaking and prioritization; more
    effective use of information management systems to monitor and improve

    the process; and implementation of human capital strategies to measure,
    evaluate, and provide performance incentives for process participants. FAA
    and departmental officials concurred with a number of the recommendations.
    They said that a few of the report?s recommendations will require further
    consideration and that a specific response to each of the report?s
    recommendations will be provided in the Department?s

    response to the final report. Principal Findings Steps of the Rulemaking

    Of the 76 significant rulemaking actions GAO reviewed, about 42 percent
    Process Were Completed in were initiated in response to a congressional
    mandate or recommendation Varying Times That Often by NTSB. While
    congressional mandates may require that FAA take

    Missed Legislative rulemaking action, NTSB?s recommendations do not.
    However, FAA is

    required to formally respond to the recommendation to specify what action
    Requirements

    is being taken and why. FAA initiated well over half of its rulemaking
    actions in response to mandates from the Congress and safety recommendations
    from NTSB within 2 years of the mandate or recommendation. However, FAA
    sometimes took many years to initiate the

    rulemaking process. In some cases, these delays may have occurred because
    FAA took additional time to study complex issues raised or because there
    were differences of opinion between FAA and NTSB. For

    example, because FAA did not agree with an NTSB recommendation to require
    the use of child safety seats aboard aircraft, 7 years passed between NTSB?s
    recommendation and FAA?s initiation of the rulemaking process. During that
    time, FAA studied the issue, concluded that if child restraints

    were required on aircraft, passenger diversion to other transportation modes
    could cause a net increase in fatalities, and made a policy decision not to
    begin rulemaking to require child safety seats. Recommendations by the White
    House Commission on Aviation Safety eventually led FAA to revise its policy
    position and initiate rulemaking.

    For significant rules published during the 6- year period from fiscal year
    1995 through fiscal year 2000, FAA took a median time of about 2 � years 1
    to proceed from formally initiating the rulemaking process to publishing

    the final rule in the Federal Register. This time period ranged from less
    than 1 year to almost 15 years. FAA took a median time of about 20 months to
    proceed from initiating the process to releasing the proposed rule for
    public comment. It took a median time of about 15 months to finalize the
    rule after the close of the public comment period, which was comparable to
    the time other federal agencies took to complete this final step.

    The time taken for one step of the rulemaking process that occurs in FAA?s
    development of both proposed and final rules- departmental review and
    approval- has been of particular concern to the Congress. In the Federal
    Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996, the Congress addressed its concern by
    establishing a time frame for this step. The act requires the Secretary of
    the Department of Transportation to review proposed and final significant
    rules and either approve them or return them to FAA with comments within 45
    days of receiving them. GAO was unable to measure the extent to which the
    Department met this 45- day requirement because, while FAA?s

    information system tracked the date of the Office of the Secretary of
    Transportation?s (OST) approval of some rules, it did not track the date of
    OST?s response when the Department returned significant rules to FAA

    with comments. Using the dates that were tracked, GAO found that overall,
    for both proposed and final rules, the median time required for OST?s
    approval since the 1996 act (including review, comment, and FAA?s response,
    if any)- was 4.1 months (124 days). Measuring proposed and final rules
    separately, GAO found that the median time for OST?s approval of proposed
    rules was 4.7 months (140 days), while the median time OST took to approve
    final rules was 2. 3 months (69 days).

    The time FAA took to finalize its rules after the close of the public
    comment period was similar to that of other federal agencies. GAO examined
    the 1 The median processing time is the statistical point for which half of
    the processing times are greater and half of the processing times are lower.

    time taken for this part of the rulemaking process for four regulatory
    agencies- Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS), the
    Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Drug Administration
    (FDA), and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration
    (NHTSA)- in addition to FAA. Except for APHIS, which finalized all of its
    significant rules within 2 years of the close of the public comment period,

    agencies generally finalized between three- quarters and two- thirds of
    their significant rules within 24 months of the close of the public comment
    period.

    FAA met the legislative requirement passed in 1996 to publish final rules
    within 16 months of the close of the public comment period for less than
    half of its significant rules. Specifically, FAA met the legislative time
    frame for 7 of the 18 significant rules subject to the requirement. FAA was
    even less successful in meeting legislative requirements to issue specific
    rules within specially mandated periods of time. Of the 76 rulemaking
    actions GAO reviewed, 7 were initiated in response to congressional mandates
    with specific time frames, and FAA met the required time frames for 2 of
    them.

    FAA?s Reforms Addressed The two new groups that FAA established to improve
    management Long- standing Rulemaking

    involvement in the rulemaking process consisted of members from all FAA
    Problems but Did Not

    offices involved with current rulemaking efforts, as well as representatives
    Reduce Rulemaking Times

    from OST?s General Counsel. The steering committee was established to
    provide a formal mechanism for senior- level managers at the
    associateadministrator level to meet periodically to determine the priority
    of rulemaking projects. The rulemaking management council was established to
    assemble director- level managers to manage the day- to- day process of
    developing rules. FAA?s new rulemaking manual provides rulemaking policy
    guidance. It suggests milestones for completing steps in the

    rulemaking process and establishes guidelines for the steering committee to
    follow in setting priorities.

    To better administer the rulemaking process, FAA documented in its manual
    the roles and responsibilities for each member of the rulemaking team. This
    included clarifying the scope of two reviews, legal and economic, that have
    historically caused delays. The new computerized system, the Integrated
    Rulemaking Management Information System, was designed to collect data on
    the time required to complete multiple internal processing steps and to
    track the status of rules. It was thought that this information would form a
    basis for measuring the process and the

    performance of its participants. Furthermore, the two new teams FAA created,
    the continuous improvement team and the quality team, were to evaluate the
    process and make recommendations for improving it, providing essential
    feedback for rulemaking management.

    These reforms were not matched by extensive changes in human capital
    management. According to the Director of FAA?s Office of Rulemaking, the
    staff resources needed to develop and implement recommended human capital
    initiatives were not available because rulemaking staff and management were
    fully occupied with the day- to- day management of the rulemaking process.
    As a result, FAA relied on existing training and reward systems. Whereas
    FAA?s reform plan envisioned orientation training in the new rulemaking
    process and ongoing training in other areas, rulemaking staff received only
    the orientation training along with an introduction to the new system
    software. Other instruction- on functional skill development, conflict
    resolution, and project management, among other things- was not offered.
    Furthermore, although FAA?s reforms included recommendations to establish
    performance measures for carrying out rulemaking duties and

    to develop a rewards system for performance in rulemaking- key elements of
    human capital management- the agency has not implemented these
    recommendations. FAA?s reforms did not reduce the median time it took to
    complete the rulemaking process. For the 3- year period following the
    reforms (fiscal years 1998 to 2000), FAA?s median time to proceed from
    initiating the

    rulemaking process to publishing the final rule increased by about 8 months
    compared to its median time to complete this step in the 3- year period
    prior to the reform (fiscal years 1995 to 1997). The median time FAA

    took to proceed from initiating the process to releasing the proposed rule
    for public comment increased by more than 3 months after the reforms, from
    16.5 months in the 3- year period prior to reform (fiscal years 1995 to
    1997) to 20.4 months in the 3- year period following the reforms (fiscal
    years 1998 to 2000). The median time FAA took to finalize the rule after the
    close of the public comment period increased from 14 months to 16. 3 months
    during the same time period. FAA?s reforms did not reduce the time needed
    for departmental review and approval of the agency?s significant rules.
    Overall, for both proposed and final rules, the median time OST took to

    approve the rule (including review, comment, and FAA?s response, if any)
    increased from about 125 days before FAA?s reforms to about 130 days after
    the reforms. FAA officials said that the process might have taken longer
    without OST?s review, noting, for example, that approval of FAA?s

    significant proposed and final rules by OMB might have required more time if
    OST had not identified issues that FAA might have missed.

    The number of significant rules FAA published declined after the reforms
    took effect. FAA developed and published 18 significant final rules in the
    3- year period prior to the reforms, and it published 11 in the 3- year
    period after the reforms. Although it published fewer rules in the 3- year
    period

    after the reforms than in the 3- year period before the reforms, more than
    half of the time, FAA did not meet the time frames for completing steps in
    the rulemaking process that it established in its 1998 reforms. For example,
    FAA?s guidance suggests 450 days for the proposed rule phase of the process
    and 310 days for final rule phase. In the 3- year period following its
    reforms, FAA met its suggested time frame for proposed rules in about 19
    percent of the cases and missed it in about 81 percent of the cases. FAA

    met its suggested time frame for final rules in about 36 percent of the
    cases and missed it in about 64 percent of the cases. Limited Implementation
    of FAA?s reforms have not successfully addressed many of the problems that
    Reforms Has Not Solved

    have hindered the timeliness of rulemaking at the agency. Our survey of
    Long- standing Problems FAA?s rulemaking staff showed that less than 20
    percent agreed that FAA has made the changes necessary to improve the
    rulemaking process. As a result of external and internal pressures, there
    continued to be too many top priority rules (from 35 in February 1998 to 49
    in March 2001). Shifts in management priorities, also driven by external and
    internal pressures,

    pulled staff from projects already under way. Furthermore, on some rules,
    management continued to have difficulty resolving complex policy issues
    early in the process, resulting in delays and additional work. Process
    administration remained an area of concern because rulemaking team members?
    confusion over roles and responsibilities in the process continued to add to
    delays. In addition, the new automated information system was used to track
    only FAA?s ?A? list of priority projects, including 24 significant rules,
    and was therefore missing complete and accurate data for many of FAA?s other
    significant rulemaking projects. The document management feature had not
    been fully implemented in all offices participating in the rulemaking
    process. Moreover, the continuous

    improvement team and the quality team had not documented any quality review
    tasks, such as completing project evaluations or making recommendations to
    improve the rulemaking process.

    Finally, about half of the FAA employees who participated as members of the
    rulemaking teams and responded to GAO?s survey indicated that they had not
    received enough training to do their jobs. Most participants, furthermore,
    said they are not evaluated or rewarded according to the quality and
    timeliness of the rules they produce. Regarding the problems GAO identified,
    FAA rulemaking officials said they planned to upgrade their information
    system to (1) track the status of rules transmitted to OST to better measure
    the time taken to obtain OST approval and (2) incorporate the ability to
    document lessons learned to improve their continuous improvement efforts.
    They also said they were updating their rulemaking manual.

    Recommendations for In order for FAA to improve the efficiency of its
    rulemaking process and

    Executive Action reap the maximum benefits from its rulemaking reform
    efforts, GAO

    recommends that the Secretary of Transportation direct the FAA Administrator
    to expedite the rulemaking process by fully implementing the 1998 reforms to
    address long- standing problems in this process in the areas of management
    involvement, process administration, and

    management of human capital. These reforms include, among other things,
    instituting more timely and effective participation of management in
    decisionmaking and prioritization, making more effective use of information
    management to monitor and improve the process, and implementing human
    capital strategies to measure, evaluate, and provide performance incentives
    for process participants.

    Agency Comments GAO provided a draft of this report to the Office of the
    Secretary of the Department of Transportation and FAA for their review and
    comment. In discussions after their review of the draft, departmental and
    FAA officials stated that the report was a comprehensive treatment of the
    agency?s rulemaking process. These officials indicated that they agreed with
    a number of the draft report?s recommendations. They said that a few of the
    report?s recommendations will require further consideration and that a
    specific response to each of the report?s recommendations will be provided

    in the Department?s response to the final report. FAA provided GAO with
    technical clarifications, which GAO included in this report where
    appropriate. The Department also provided written comments on this report,
    which did not specifically address GAO?s

    recommendations or the overall conclusions of this report, but included four
    main points about the results of this review. (The full text of the
    Department?s written comments and GAO?s detailed response to those comments
    are provided in app. V.)

    First, commenting officials said that the rulemaking process is necessarily
    complex and that straightforward arithmetical comparisons across projects
    cannot adequately disclose the nature and extent of challenges and timing
    behind each rulemaking effort. GAO agrees that rulemaking can be a complex
    and time- consuming process; this understanding is reflected throughout this
    report. GAO also agrees that quantitative measures cannot fully capture the
    qualitative nature of the challenges FAA may face in its rulemaking efforts.
    Yet, because such measures are necessary to evaluate the process and
    identify potential improvements, GAO continues to believe that the time FAA
    took to complete steps in the process is a valuable

    performance measure of FAA?s reforms to the rulemaking process. Second,
    commenting officials said they were gratified to see that FAA?s rulemaking
    process is sound and getting better, citing GAO?s findings that FAA?s
    rulemaking process is comparable to other agencies in the federal government
    and that the median age of FAA?s significant final rulemaking projects
    decreased between 1997 and 2000. In fact, the draft report provided to the
    Department for comment included a finding that the

    median time FAA?s unpublished significant final rules had remained in the
    process (see fig. 16) had decreased by about 7 months, as the Department
    noted. However, in finalizing the calculations, GAO found that this measure
    showed an increase of approximately 5 months. Moreover, GAO believes it is
    important that this report?s findings are kept in the appropriate context.
    For example, GAO?s analysis found that for one step in the process,
    publishing final rules after considering public comments, FAA?s timeliness
    was comparable to that of four other agencies examined. This report notes,

    however, that because agencies vary in how they initiate and document their
    rulemaking processes, it was not within the scope of this effort to attempt
    to collect and compare information on the time other agencies took to
    initiate the rulemaking process or to develop proposed rules up until their
    release for public comment. In addition, GAO?s analysis of times to complete
    the entire process and steps within the process showed, at best, little or
    no improvement. Finally, the Department noted that GAO?s

    analysis included rulemaking projects that predated FAA?s reforms. As noted
    in this report, GAO used 3- year periods before and after FAA?s reforms as a
    basis for its analysis of the impact of the reforms on processing times.

    Third, commenting officials emphasized their need for flexibility in setting
    priorities, noting that the varied forces that affect FAA?s rulemaking
    schedule necessitate periodic reevaluation and adjustment of rulemaking
    priorities. GAO agrees with the Department that rulemaking priorities must
    be flexible. However, real improvement in the rulemaking process can be

    achieved only through strategic management of the agency?s resources within
    established priorities. To effectively accomplish FAA?s mission as a
    regulatory agency, FAA rulemakers must make difficult decisions regarding
    how best to focus the agency?s efforts and resources and resist pressures to
    expand its list of highest priority rules beyond the number it has the
    resources to aggressively pursue.

    Finally, commenting officials said that the majority of FAA rules that have
    been reviewed by OST were completed timely and that the review added value
    to the process by ensuring the rulemaking package was complete. They said
    OMB officials have repeatedly emphasized the value of OST review in
    shortening its own reviews of FAA rulemakings. They also said that the
    report?s analysis of the median time for OST review is skewed by a few rules
    that required extensive efforts to resolve satisfactorily. Regarding the
    value of departmental review, GAO was unable to compare process times for
    rules reviewed and approved by the Department to rules that

    were not because there were no significant rules that had not been reviewed
    by the Department. Similarly, OMB officials said they lacked a basis for
    evaluating the impact or value of OST?s review in the absence of significant
    rules that had not gone through OST?s review process. Regarding GAO?s use of
    median times in the analysis, while the mean, or average, may give greater
    weight to extreme values, the median, or middle

    observation, identifies the statistical point for which half of the data
    points measured are greater and half are less. Thus, the median analysis is
    not skewed by the magnitude of individual observations.

    Chapt er 1

    Introduction The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for
    developing, administering, enforcing, and revising an effective, enforceable
    set of aviation safety regulations that enhance aviation safety and security
    and promote the efficient use of airspace. Generally, a regulation is an
    agency statement that is designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law
    or policy or to describe procedural requirements. The process by which FAA
    and other federal agencies develop regulations is called rulemaking.

    FAA?s rulemaking activities encompass all of the agency?s areas of
    responsibility, including air traffic control, aviation security, and
    commercial space transportation. FAA must address both long- standing and
    emerging issues in its rulemaking efforts. For example, questions about the
    safety of aging aircraft and the adequacy of flight duty rest

    requirements for airline pilots have been debated for decades. In contrast,
    the issues of fire safety standards for cargo compartments and the transport
    of oxygen generators emerged after the Valujet crash outside of Miami in May
    1996.

    Rulemaking can be a complex and time- consuming process, and the Congress
    expressed its concerns about the speed of FAA?s rulemaking in 1996, when it
    enacted legislation that established time frames for steps in the process.
    While some rules may need to be developed quickly to address safety issues
    or guide the use of new technologies, rules must be carefully considered
    before being finalized because they can have a significant impact on
    individuals, industries, the economy, and the environment. Figure 4 provides
    a case study of FAA?s efforts to address a complex, longstanding aviation
    safety issue by creating a rule to regulate flight duty and rest
    requirements for flight crew members.

    Figure 4: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Establish Flight Duty and Rest
    Requirements for Flight Crew Members

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    Federal Rulemaking Rulemaking involves three stages of agency activity.
    First, an agency Process Involves identifies a need for rulemaking. Second,
    it initiates the rulemaking

    process, develops a proposed rule, and publishes it for public comment.
    Common Steps and

    After a public comment period, the agency finalizes the rule by considering
    Documents

    the comments received and drafting and publishing the final rule. Figure 5
    provides an overview of the process as it applies to FAA.

    Figure 5: FAA?s Rulemaking Process for Significant Rules Source: Based on
    FAA?s Rulemaking Manual, Dec. 1998.

    A rulemaking issue may be identified internally or externally. For example,
    FAA staff may find that changes in aviation technology or operations or the
    emergence of a safety problem warrant rulemaking. Alternatively, the public
    or the aviation industry may petition the agency to develop a new rule or
    provide an exemption from existing rules. At the beginning of fiscal

    year 2001, FAA was responding to 57 petitions for rulemaking and 415
    petitions for exemptions while reviewing 84 recommendations by its advisory
    committee- the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC). In addition,
    the Congress, the President, or the Secretary of the Department of
    Transportation (DOT) may direct FAA to develop a rule, or the National
    Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) may issue a safety recommendation. After
    a rulemaking issue is identified, an agency must consider the issue in light
    of its resources and other rulemaking issues that may be equally compelling.
    Some rulemaking issues may require study and

    analysis before an agency?s management can decide whether to initiate the
    rulemaking process and devote resources to developing a proposed rule. Once
    an agency has decided to initiate rulemaking, the basic process for
    developing and issuing regulations is spelled out in section 553 of the
    Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA). 1 Most federal agencies,
    including FAA, use notice and comment rulemaking. 2 Once rulemaking is
    initiated, agencies generally must develop and publish a proposed rule or

    ?notice of proposed rulemaking? in the Federal Register. 3 A public comment
    period follows, during which interested persons have the opportunity to
    provide ?written data, views, or arguments.? After the comment period ends,
    the agency finalizes the rule by reviewing the comments, revising the rule
    as necessary, and publishing the final rule in the Federal Register at least
    30 days before it becomes effective. 4 Most rules are later incorporated
    into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). 1 5 U. S. C. sect.553.

    2 In some cases, agencies use abbreviated procedures to expedite the
    rulemaking process by issuing the rules without first obtaining public
    comment. The APA allows agencies to issue final rules without issuing
    proposed rules for comment in certain cases, such as when the agency
    determines for ?good cause? that notice and comment procedures are
    ?impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.? For
    example, agencies may bypass the comment process and issue a rule in the
    case of an emergency. We reported on agencies? use of the APA?s ?good cause?
    exception in our report Federal Rulemaking:

    Agencies Often Published Final Actions Without Proposed Rules (GAO/ GGD- 98-
    126, Aug. 31, 1998). 3 The Federal Register is the official daily
    publication for federal agencies? notices, rules, and proposed rules, as
    well as presidential documents such as executive orders.

    For the remainder of this report, we will use the term ?rulemaking? to refer
    to the notice and comment process by which FAA?s rules are developed and
    codified in the CFR. Rules vary in importance, complexity, and impact. Under
    Executive Order 12866, federal agencies and the Office of Management and
    Budget (OMB) categorize proposed and final rules in terms of their potential
    impact on the economy and the industry affected. Executive Order 12866 5
    defines a

    regulatory action as ?significant? if it  has an annual impact on the
    economy of $100 million or more;

     adversely affects the economy in a material way (in terms of productivity,
    competition, jobs, environment, public health or safety, or state, local, or
    tribal governments or communities);  creates a serious inconsistency or
    interferes with another agency?s

    action;

     materially changes the budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user
    fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof;
    or  raises novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the
    President?s priorities, or the principles set forth in the order. Since
    1996, significant rulemaking entries have constituted about half of all of
    FAA?s rulemaking entries in the Unified Agenda, a semiannual report of
    federal regulatory activities. 6 Figure 6 shows the total number of FAA?s

    rulemaking entries and the number of significant rulemaking entries listed
    in the October Unified Agendas from 1995 through 2000.

    4 If the rule is considered ?major? under the Small Business Regulatory
    Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, then it cannot become effective until 60
    days after a copy is received by the Congress or it is published in the
    Federal Register, whichever is later. 5 Executive Order 12866, Regulatory
    Planning and Review (Sept. 30, 1993).

    6 Executive Order 12866 requires regulatory agencies to prepare an agenda of
    all regulatory actions under development or review. The Unified Agenda of
    Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions is published in the Federal
    Register twice each year by the Regulatory Information Service Center and
    provides uniform reporting of data on regulatory activities under
    development throughout the federal government.

    Figure 6: Number of FAA?s Rulemaking Entries Listed in the Unified Agenda,
    Fiscal Year 1995 Through Fiscal Year 2000

    Note: According to the Unified Agenda, the list includes rulemaking
    activities under development, under review, or recently completed. However,
    FAA rulemaking officials said that the number of entries in the agenda for
    FAA is not a precise measurement of the agency?s rulemaking workload because
    FAA?s submission includes rulemaking actions that are not actively being
    worked on. While FAA maintains statistics on the number of significant and
    nonsignificant rules published annually, it does not maintain historical
    records of the number of significant or nonsignificant rules under
    development for any particular year.

    Source: GAO?s analysis of data in the annual Unified Agenda.

    Significant rules often take longer to issue than nonsignificant rules. They
    may require extensive regulatory analyses of the potential economic, social,
    and environmental impacts of one or more alternatives. 7 These analyses may
    take months to complete and are needed to ensure that the 7 DOT requires
    that regulatory analyses include, among other things, a statement of the
    problem and issues that make the regulation significant, a description and
    analysis of the economic and other consequences of the alternatives, and an
    explanation of the reasons for choosing one alternative over the others.

    projected economic impact has been correctly quantified and that the costs
    the rule will impose on the affected industry and individuals are justified.
    Significant rules typically require more levels of review than
    nonsignificant rules. Executive Order 12866 requires that OMB review
    agencies? proposed and final significant rules before they are published in
    the Federal Register.

    Moreover, clearances for proposed and final rules may be required at the
    departmental level for those agencies that are part of a cabinet- level
    department.

    To reduce this burden, the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996
    grants rulemaking authority directly to the Administrator, except that the
    Administrator may not issue a proposed or final rule without obtaining the

    Secretary?s approval if that rule is significant as defined by statute. The
    Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21 st Century
    narrowed the scope of rules that would be considered to be significant,
    setting the threshold for economic significance to $250,000,000 and
    eliminating inconsistency and interference with other agencies? actions and
    material changes to budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, or
    loan programs and recipients? rights and obligations as criteria.

    Nevertheless, agencies that report to the Office of the Secretary of
    Transportation (OST), including FAA, have also been required by the
    Secretary to submit for review all rules deemed significant under the
    executive order as well as rules that OST has indicated are to be considered
    to be ?significant? under supplemental guidelines. 8 These additional
    criteria increase the number of rules for which agencies within DOT are
    expected

    to complete regulatory analyses. For example, FAA published a significant
    rule in April 2000 that limited the number of commercial air tours permitted
    in the Grand Canyon. 9 While the rule was not considered a significant
    regulatory action under Executive Order 12866, and would not have been
    significant under the statute, it was considered significant under the
    Department?s supplemental guidelines because the rulemaking had a 8 Policies
    and Procedures for Simplification, Analysis, and Review of Regulations (DOT
    Order 2100. 5, May 22, 1980). Under the Department?s guidance, the
    Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, or the director of the program office
    involved may determine that a proposed or

    final rule is significant if it concerns a matter on which there is (1)
    substantial public interest or controversy; (2) has a major impact on other
    parts of the Department or another federal agency; (3) has a substantial
    effect on state and local governments; (4) has a substantial impact on a
    major transportation safety problem; (5) initiates a substantial regulatory
    program or change in policy; (6) is substantially different from
    international requirements or standards; or (7) otherwise involves important
    Department policy.

    potentially substantial economic impact on Native American tribes.
    Specifically, the rule was expected to have a significantly adverse impact
    on the Hualapai Tribe?s economic development and self- sufficiency, since

    the trive relied on income from air tour operations and tourist dollars
    brought to the reservation by the air tours. The additional analyses and
    reviews required for significant rules are incorporated into the basic
    process that all federal agencies use for rulemaking: developing a proposed
    rule, releasing the proposed rule for public comment, and developing a final
    rule.

    Various offices within FAA conduct the required analyses and reviews of
    rulemaking documents, as shown in table 1. In the early stages of
    rulemaking, each rule is the responsibility of a program office with
    technical expertise in a specific area. This office develops the initial

    rulemaking documents, as indicated in table 1. Depending on the content of
    the rule, the program office may be a staff office, like the Office of Chief
    Counsel, that also has the additional responsibility of reviewing all
    significant rules. Alternatively, it may be an office with responsibility
    for a technical area, such as the Office of Civil Aviation Security Policy
    and Planning. Each of these offices has managers who can become involved in
    the rulemaking process by reviewing the work of its representatives on a
    rulemaking team. Generally, FAA?s rulemaking teams consist of
    representatives from the program office, the Office of Rulemaking, the
    Office of Aviation Policy and Plans, and the Office of the Chief Counsel. In
    addition to significant and nonsignificant rulemaking, the staff in these
    offices also work on other projects, including airworthiness directives,
    airspace actions, and responses to petitions and exemptions.

    9 Commercial Air Tour Limitation in the Grand Canyon National Park Special
    Flight Rules Area: Final Rule, April 4, 2000, Federal Register, Vol. 65 No.
    65 p. 17708.

    Table 1: Key Roles and Responsibilities of Participants in FAA?s Rulemaking
    Process FAA rulemaking participants Responsibilities

    Administrator The Administrator sets FAA?s overall policy and direction and
    resolves any rulemaking disputes. The Administrator?s office reviews and
    approves all proposed and final rules. Office of Rulemaking The Office of
    Rulemaking is responsible for the administrative and nontechnical aspects of
    rulemaking project activities, including maintaining the agency?s automated
    system for tracking rulemaking projects, drafting rulemaking documents, and
    tracking the priority of rulemaking activities. Office of Chief Counsel The
    Office of Chief Counsel provides legal support for all FAA activities. The
    Chief

    Counsel is responsible for determining the legal adequacy of FAA?s actions
    related to rules and regulations and acting as a liaison between FAA and the
    General Counsel in the DOT. Office of Aviation Policy and

    The Office of Aviation Policy and Plans provides detailed estimates of the
    economic Plans consequences of existing and proposed regulations. This
    includes performing regulatory reviews of existing and proposed regulations
    to determine their impact on small businesses, and developing most of the
    critical values (e. g., injuries, property damage) to be used for economic
    analyses. Program offices A program office is the technical office that
    proposes a rulemaking. There are many offices at FAA that can become active
    in rulemaking when a rule within their area of technical expertise is
    considered. A program office evaluates the adequacy of existing regulations
    that fall within its jurisdiction and develops initial rulemaking documents.
    The

    director of a program office reviews and approves the initial proposal and
    submits it for approval by rulemaking management. A program office
    representative is the rulemaking team member who develops the technical
    content of rules within his or her office?s

    jurisdiction. Examples of program offices at FAA whose technical expertise
    is frequently required to complete rulemaking include the Office of Flight
    Standards and the Office of Aircraft Certification. Aviation Rulemaking
    Advisory ARAC is a formal advisory committee consisting of representatives
    from the aviation Committee (ARAC) community. Established by the FAA
    Administrator in 1991, ARAC provides industry information, advice, and
    recommendations to be considered during FAA?s rulemaking activities. ARAC
    affords FAA additional opportunities to obtain first- hand information and
    insight from those parties that are most affected by existing and proposed
    regulations. Source: FAA?s Rulemaking Manual, Dec. 30, 1998.

    Prior Studies of The ultimate goal of the federal rulemaking process is to
    develop and issue

    Federal Rulemaking a quality rule in a timely and efficient manner. Time is
    of particular importance when safety is at stake or when the pace of
    technological Have Found Similar

    development exceeds the pace of rulemaking. Many of the problems and
    Persistent

    federal agencies face in developing and publishing rules are long- standing
    Problems

    and similar across agencies, and they have been cited in studies and
    discussions of the process since at least the 1970s. For example, a Senate
    study in July 1977 cited deficiencies in decisionmaking, planning, and
    priority- setting by top management as causes of delay in federal
    rulemaking. 10 In July 2000, DOT?s Office of the Inspector General (OIG)

    reviewed the Department?s rulemaking process and found that the Department
    had taken as long as 12 years to issue significant rules. 11 The OIG
    attributed the lack of timeliness of the Department?s rulemaking partly to a
    lack of timely decisionmaking and prioritization. Studies specifically
    targeting the efficiency of FAA?s rulemaking process

    over almost 40 years have also identified similar problems. Figure 7
    provides a list of key studies on FAA?s rulemaking process. 10 Delay in the
    Regulatory Process, Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate,
    July 1977. 11 The Department of Transportation?s Rulemaking Process (MH-
    2000- 109 July 20, 2000).

    Figure 7: Studies and Reports on FAA?s Rulemaking That Identified Common
    Problems

    Source: Generated by GAO.

    The central findings of the most recent study of FAA?s rulemaking process,
    published in 1997, echoed the findings of past studies. 12 For this report,
    we grouped the problems identified by the 1997 study into three areas:
    management involvement, administration of the rulemaking process, and human
    capital.

    12 Federal Aviation Administration Business Process Reengineering Technical
    Report, Electronic Data Systems (May 16, 1997).

    Problems With Management In terms of management involvement, FAA?s 1997
    study of its rulemaking

    Involvement, Process process found that problems related to shifting
    priorities, the timing of

    Administration, and Human management involvement, and the willingness of
    management to delegate

    Capital Impaired FAA?s authority all caused delays. Inconsistent and
    changing priorities among

    FAA offices caused false starts, delays in the process, and wasted
    Rulemaking resources. Inadequate or ill- timed involvement by FAA?s senior
    management hindered the agency?s ability to make timely decisions. As a
    result, rule drafters frequently worked without adequate direction or buy-
    in from policymakers, causing extensive queuing, delays, and rework. The
    reluctance of FAA?s rulemaking management to delegate authority caused
    problems in internal coordination and accountability and created extensive
    layers of review that delayed the rulemaking process. Rulemaking projects
    were also often delayed because no one was held accountable for keeping
    projects on schedule. The lack of coordination resulted in ?finger-
    pointing? as to why problems remained unsolved. FAA?s 1997 study identified
    similar concerns with the timeliness of rulemaking efforts by FAA?s industry

    advisory committee. For example, the committee had too many projects, some
    of which were duplicative or overlapping. A lack of coordination and
    accountability between FAA and the committee also impaired the effectiveness
    of the advisory committee.

    In terms of process administration, FAA?s 1997 study found that confusion
    concerning the roles and responsibilities of rulemaking participants at FAA
    created difficulties in determining who had responsibility for what actions,
    led to breakdowns in coordination and communication, and resulted in
    inadequate supervision. Multiple information systems also hampered
    coordination and led to inaccurate tracking records and databases, as well
    as to information that was hard to access (e. g., archives of decisions
    made).

    Without reliable records, FAA often could not pinpoint where problems and
    backlogs occurred. Moreover, even when it did identify weaknesses, it lacked
    systems with which to evaluate and improve the process.

    In terms of human capital management, the 1997 study found that FAA had not
    established systems for selecting and training personnel involved in
    rulemaking. Rulemaking teams at FAA typically did not observe project

    schedules, which they regarded as unrealistically optimistic. Measures of
    timeliness were not consistently used to measure and evaluate the
    performance of rulemaking participants. FAA?s rulemaking process lacked a
    system for consistently tying incentives and rewards to specific measures of
    performance.

    Concerns About the Responding to concerns about the efficiency of FAA?s
    rulemaking process

    Efficiency of FAA?s and in particular the time required for departmental
    review by OST, the Rulemaking Prompted Congress enacted legislation in 1996
    designed to speed FAA?s efforts to Congressional Action and

    develop and publish final rules. The Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of
    1996 amended section 106 of title 49 U. S. C. to establish a 16- month time
    the Latest FAA Review

    limit for FAA?s finalization of rules after the close of the public comment
    period and a 45- day requirement for OST?s review of FAA?s significant
    proposed and final rules (see ch. 2). (The act also established a 24- month
    time limit for finalization of rules after publication of an advanced notice
    of proposed rulemaking, a request for information that FAA may issue in
    developing a proposed rule. Because this notice is not always issued, we

    did not use it as a measure in our analysis.) In response, FAA reviewed its
    rulemaking process, established its own suggested time frames for completing
    steps in the process (see ch. 3), and identified potential improvements to
    its process in the general areas of management involvement, process
    administration, and human capital management. 13 These improvements are
    discussed in chapter 3.

    Objectives, Scope, and The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation, House
    Committee on

    Methodology Transportation and Infrastructure, asked us to review FAA?s
    rulemaking process to determine whether FAA could improve the efficiency of
    its

    rulemaking process. Specifically, we addressed three main questions in our
    review:

     What are the time frames for FAA?s rulemaking, including the time FAA took
    to initiate the rulemaking process in response to statutory requirements and
    safety recommendations and, once begun, to develop and publish significant
    rules?  What were the effects of FAA?s 1998 reforms on its process and on
    its time frames for completing rulemaking?

     How effective were FAA?s reform efforts in addressing the factors that
    affect the pace of the rulemaking process? To determine the time frames for
    FAA?s rulemaking, we created a database of proposed and final rules that
    constituted the agency?s significant 13 Federal Aviation Administration
    Business Process Reengineering Technical Report (May 1997).

    rulemaking workload from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2000. We
    focused our analysis on 76 significant rulemaking actions identified by FAA
    in the semiannual editions of the Unified Agenda or identified in our search
    of the Federal Register. This consisted of rulemaking actions that had
    either been published for public comment or were initiated but had not yet
    been published for public comment. 14 The initiation dates and dates of
    published actions for the 76 rules are provided in appendix I. These rules
    constituted most (about 83 percent) of FAA?s significant rule workload and
    were more likely to be complex and/ or the subject of controversy and
    potential delay. Our database contained data obtained from FAA?s Integrated
    Rulemaking Management Information System and from our review of proposed and
    final rules published in the Federal Register. 15 In creating our database,
    to determine the dates that rulemaking projects

    were initiated, we used the dates recorded in FAA?s information system. For
    the dates of the publication of proposed and final rules, we used the dates
    of publication in the Federal Register. To determine the extent to which
    FAA?s rulemaking met statutory time frames, we compiled information

    from our database of rulemaking actions and applied standards established by
    the Congress in 1996.

    To determine the effects of FAA?s 1998 reforms on the agency?s rulemaking
    process, we reviewed the 1997 report on FAA?s rulemaking process and
    discussed the 1998 reforms with FAA staff and management from the working
    team that participated in the study. We discussed rulemaking reforms with
    rulemaking officials from several other federal regulatory agencies the
    Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the 14 The status of the
    76 rules at the close of fiscal year 2000 was as follows: 29 had been
    published as final rules, 22 had been published as proposed rules and were
    still in the rulemaking process, 5 had been published as proposed rules but
    subsequently withdrawn and the rulemaking effort terminated, 9 had been
    terminated before being published as proposed rules, and 11 had been
    initiated but not yet published as proposed rules. 15 Because we were unable
    to independently verify all data in FAA?s information system related to
    FAA?s internal processing steps, to the extent possible, we based our
    findings regarding the time required to complete the process on milestone
    data we were able to

    verify through rulemaking events published in the Federal Register. However,
    FAA?s information system was the only source for data on the agency?s
    internal milestones, such as the initiation date and the time required for
    OST approval. To reduce the potential of

    inaccuracies in the data impacting the results of our analysis, we used 3-
    year periods before and after FAA?s reform as a basis for our analysis
    rather than an annual assessment, and we discussed our findings and
    conclusions with rulemaking officials who generally agreed that the time
    required to complete the process had not significantly changed as a result
    of the 1998 reforms.

    Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Highway Administration
    (FHWA), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the Food
    and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Highway Transportation Safety
    Administration (NHTSA), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to
    identify what steps they had taken to improve their rulemaking processes and
    to discuss their efforts to improve

    rulemaking. We selected these agencies because they had developed
    significant rules that were potentially technically complex and have an
    impact on public safety (e. g., regulation of nuclear power, environmental
    concerns, and food safety). We also compared FAA?s time frames for
    responding to public comment and finalizing significant rules with that of
    other federal regulatory agencies by collecting data from the Federal
    Register on the time spent processing significant rules by APHIS, EPA,

    FDA, and NHTSA. 16 To determine the extent to which FAA?s rulemaking met
    FAA?s suggested time frames for steps in the process before and after the
    reforms, we compiled information from our database of rulemaking actions and
    applied it to the time frames suggested in FAA?s rulemaking guidance. We
    also reviewed the number of significant rules FAA published before and after
    implementing its reforms as a measure of improvement in the rulemaking
    process.

    To determine the effectiveness of FAA?s reform efforts in addressing the
    factors that affect the pace of the rulemaking process management
    involvement, process administration, and human capital management we
    considered case studies of specific rules, as well as the views of
    rulemaking officials and other stakeholders in the rulemaking process,
    including representatives of NTSB, OST, and OMB . We also surveyed 134 FAA
    employees who had served as rulemaking team members on significant rules
    listed in FAA?s Unified Agendas since the beginning of fiscal year 1994.

    We chose these employees for our survey because these staff had recent
    experience and were likely to be familiar with changes in the reformed
    process. We mailed a survey to rulemaking staff to obtain their views on the
    status of the rulemaking process and the impact of rulemaking reforms. We
    received 109 responses (a response rate of about 81 percent). A copy of the

    survey instrument that summarizes the responses we received is provided in
    appendix II. We supplemented our survey results with semistructured 16 We
    did not include FHWA, FMCSA in our analysis of time frames because FMCSA was
    created from a division within FHWA in 2000 and thus did not have a
    comparable data set for analysis. We did not include NRC because, unlike the
    other agencies, as an independent agency it was not subject to OMB review.
    As a result, its rulemaking time frames did not lend themselves to a direct
    comparison.

    interviews of rulemaking team members involved in four rulemaking projects.
    For our semistructured interviews, we asked a series of questions designed
    to elicit staff members? views on the results of the reform efforts and
    suggestions for improving the process. We conducted our work from April 2000
    through March 2001 in accordance

    with generally accepted government auditing standards.

    FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of the Rulemaking Process, Meeting
    Legislative

    Chapt er 2

    Requirements in One- Half or Less of Cases The time FAA took to formally
    initiate rulemaking in response to a congressional mandate or a
    recommendation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) varied
    widely. Between fiscal year 1995 and fiscal year 2000, FAA initiated most
    rulemaking efforts in response to mandates and safety recommendations within
    2 years, but some were initiated many years later. Once FAA formally
    initiates rulemaking, the time it takes to complete the process depends on
    many

    factors, including the complexity of the issue. FAA finalized and published
    in the Federal Register 29 significant rules over the 6- year period from
    fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2000. It took a median of about 2 �
    years 1 to proceed from formal initiation through publication of the final
    rule, ranging from less than 1 year to almost 15 years. Twenty percent of
    these final rules took 10 years or more to complete. During this same time

    period, departmental review, one step in the process for both proposed and
    final rules, took a median time of about 4 months. FAA?s median pace for
    finalizing a rule after the close of the public comment period about 15

    months was comparable to that of four other federal agencies. However, FAA
    met the 16- month statutory requirement for finalizing a rule after the
    close of the public comment period in less than half of the cases since the
    legislation was passed and other mandated time limits in only 2 of 7 cases.

    FAA Initiated Most FAA initiated most rulemaking actions in response to
    safety recommendations from the NTSB and mandates from the Congress within
    Rulemaking in 2 years. 2 Of the 76 significant rulemaking actions we
    reviewed, 32 Response to Mandates

    rulemaking actions (or about 42 percent) were the subject of a and Safety

    congressional mandate or recommendation by the NTSB. While Recommendations

    congressional mandates may require that FAA take rulemaking actions, NTSB?s
    recommendations do not. However, FAA is required to respond

    Within 2 Years formally to the recommendation and specify what action is or
    is not being

    taken and why. As shown in figure 8, FAA formally initiated about 60 percent
    of mandated rulemaking actions and about one- third of NTSB?s
    recommendations within 6 months.

    1 The median processing time is the statistical point for which half of the
    processing times are greater and half of the processing times are lower. 2
    Our analysis included only those significant rulemaking actions that were
    part of the agency?s rulemaking workload during the 6- year period from
    fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2000 and that FAA had initiated in
    response to recommendations or mandates; FAA did not identify any other
    recommendations or mandates for which they had not initiated rulemaking
    action.

    Figure 8: Time Elapsed Between 20 Congressional Mandates and 12 NTSB Safety
    Recommendations and FAA?s Initiation of the Rulemaking Process Note: The
    time until initiation was measured from the date the legislation containing
    a mandate was enacted or a safety recommendation was issued to the
    initiation date identified by FAA. Because of rounding, totals may not add
    up to 100 percent. Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA data. However, FAA
    sometimes took many years to respond to a mandate or recommendation. For
    example, figure 8 also shows that in one- fourth of the

    mandated cases and one- third of the recommendations we examined, FAA took
    more than 5 years to initiate rulemaking. Figure 9 provides a case study of
    a rulemaking issue with safety implications aviation child safety seats- in
    which more than 7 years passed between NTSB?s

    recommendation and FAA?s initiation of the rulemaking process. In this case,
    the delay occurred because of policy- related disagreements between FAA and
    NTSB. After receiving NTSB?s recommendation to require child safety seats on
    aircraft, FAA studied the issue. It issued a related technical order and
    rule but decided not to pursue rulemaking to require child safety seats on
    aircraft. In part, its decision was based on a study it presented to the
    Congress that concluded that if child safety seats were required on

    aircraft, passenger diversion to other transportation modes could cause a

    net increase in fatalities. FAA eventually changed its policy position and
    initiated rulemaking after the White House Commission on Aviation Safety
    recommended that FAA make child- restraint systems mandatory on

    aircraft.

    Figure 9: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Require Child Restraints on
    Aircraft

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    In contrast to the lengthy period of time that sometimes occurs between
    NTSB?s recommendations and FAA?s initiation of rulemaking, FAA responded
    within 1 month to an NTSB recommendation in 1999 to require flight data
    recorders on Boeing 737 aircraft. Figure 10 provides a case study of this
    rulemaking effort.

    Figure 10: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Revise Digital Flight Data
    Recorder Regulations for Boeing 737 Airplanes Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA
    information.

    Time FAA Took to For significant rules published during the 6- year period
    from fiscal year Complete Steps in the

    1995 through fiscal year 2000, FAA took a median time of about 2 � years to
    proceed from the formal initiation of the rulemaking process to the
    Rulemaking Process

    publication of the final rule in the Federal Register. This time period
    ranged Varied from less than 1 year to almost 15 years. Six of the 29 final
    rules (or 20 percent) took 10 years or more to complete. FAA took a median
    time of

    about 20 months to proceed from initiating the process to proposing the rule
    for public comment. It took a median time of about 15 months to finalize the
    rule after the close of the public comment period.

    The time taken for one step of the rulemaking process that occurs in FAA?s
    development of both proposed and final rules departmental review and
    approval- has been of particular concern to the Congress. In the Federal
    Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996, the Congress addressed its concern by
    establishing a time frame for this step. The act requires the Secretary of
    DOT to review proposed and final significant rules and respond to FAA,
    either by approving them or by returning them to FAA with comments, within
    45 days after receiving them.

    While FAA?s information system tracked the date of OST?s approval of some
    significant rules, it did not track the date of OST?s response to FAA?s
    transmittals of significant rules when it sent them back to FAA with
    comments rather than approving them. We were therefore unable to measure the
    extent to which the Department had met the 45- day

    requirement set forth in the 1996 act. FAA rulemaking officials said that
    they did manually track this information for individual rules and planned to
    incorporate this capability into the next upgrade of the information system.
    FAA?s information system did contain the dates that some rules were
    submitted by FAA to OST and the dates of OST?s final approval. We used these
    dates to measure the time it took for OST to approve FAA?s significant
    proposed and final rules from fiscal year 1997, when the legislation went

    into effect, through fiscal year 2000. Overall, for both proposed and final
    rules, the median time OST took to approve the rules (including review,
    comment, and FAA?s response, if any) was 4.1 months (124 days). Measuring
    proposed and final rules separately, we found that the median time OST took
    to approve proposed rules was 4.7 months (140 days), while the median time
    OST took to approve final rules was 2.3 months (69 days). In chapter 4, we
    discuss the views of departmental and FAA staff on issues that impact the
    time required for departmental approval.

    In a more recent effort to reduce delays related to OST?s review, on April
    5, 2000, the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st
    Century amended title 106 of 49 U. S. C. by raising the dollar threshold

    required for secretarial approval and eliminating several criteria that
    triggered departmental review of significant rules. 3 The Congress included
    this language to, among other things, streamline FAA?s rulemaking process 3
    The act raised the dollar threshold from $100 million to $250 million and
    eliminated consideration of the impact of a regulation on other agencies?
    actions, as well as consideration of the budgetary impact of entitlements,
    grants, user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of
    recipients as considerations requiring secretarial review.

    by reducing the number of significant rules that had to be submitted for
    departmental review and approval. Because the legislation preempts DOT?s
    Order 2100.5 (which defines what rules FAA and other DOT modal
    administrations are to submit to OST for review, as discussed in ch. 1), FAA
    is required to submit to OST only those significant rules that meet the
    criteria defined in the act. At the time of our review, FAA and OST had not

    yet implemented the provisions of the act. As a result, the number of FAA?s
    significant rules that met the criteria for OST review had not been reduced.

    Time FAA Took to Although we did not compare the time frame of FAA?s entire
    rulemaking Finalize Rules After the

    process to that of other agencies, we did find that the time FAA took to
    finalize rules after the close of the public comment period was comparable
    Comment Period Was to that of four other federal agencies. 4 We selected
    four regulatory Comparable to That of agencies- APHIS, EPA, FDA, and NHTSA
    and compared the time they

    took to finalize rules from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2000. 5 The
    Four Other Agencies

    results are presented in figure 11. The figure shows that, except for APHIS,
    which finalized all of its significant rules within 2 years of the close of
    the public comment period, agencies generally finalized between two- thirds
    and three- fourths of their significant rules within 24 months of the close
    of

    the public comment period. 4 Because agencies vary in how they initiate and
    document their rulemaking processes, it was not within the scope of this
    effort to attempt to collect and standardize information on the time elapsed
    at other agencies in initiating the rulemaking process and developing
    proposed rules up until their release for public comment. 5 We selected
    these agencies because they had developed significant rules that were
    potentially technically complex and have an impact on public safety (e. g.,
    regulation of nuclear power, environmental concerns, and food safety).

    Figure 11: Percent of Significant Rules Finalized Within Certain Time
    Periods After the Close of the Public Comment Period by FAA and Other
    Selected Regulatory Agencies, Fiscal Years 1995- 2000

    Note: This analysis excludes interim final rules; rule count provided for
    each category/ agency. Source: GAO?s analysis of data from the Regulatory
    Information Service Center and the Federal Register.

    FAA Met Legislative The Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996
    established a 16- month Requirements in Half time frame for FAA?s
    finalization of rules after the close of the public

    comment period. From October 1996 through March 2001, FAA met this or Less
    of Its deadline in 7 of 18 cases 6 by either publishing a final rule in the
    Federal

    Rulemaking Efforts

    Register or taking other final action within 16 months of the close of the
    public comment period. Figure 12 provides a case study of FAA?s rulemaking
    to prohibit the transportation of discharged or unfilled oxygen generators
    in aircraft. This effort exceeded the congressional time frame by about 11
    months. (See app. III for a complete list of rules subject to the act?s time
    frames.)

    6 Since the passage of the act in October 1996, FAA published 25 proposed
    rules for comment. As of March 31, 2001, 10 of these proposed rules had been
    published as final rules. FAA met the 16- month legislative requirement for
    7 of the 10 published rules but had missed the deadlines for the 8 other
    rules that had not yet been finalized. The comment period had closed for the
    remaining 7 rules, but 16 months had not yet elapsed as of March 31, 2001.

    Figure 12: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Prohibit Transportation of
    Oxygen Generators as Cargo in Aircraft

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    The Congress has also mandated time frames for steps in FAA?s rulemaking on
    specific issues. The agency did not meet many of these legislated time
    frames. Specifically, of the 20 congressionally mandated rules that were
    part of FAA?s workload between fiscal year 1995 and fiscal year 2000, 7
    included a time frame for agency action. FAA met the time frame in only 2

    cases, both of which called for initiating the rulemaking process by a
    certain date. 7 Appendix IV provides additional information regarding the
    current status of the seven rules with congressionally mandated time frames.
    Figure 13 provides a case study of FAA?s proposed rule to revise procedures
    for aircraft registry to assist drug enforcement efforts that exceeded a
    specific legislative mandate by more than 10 years.

    7 FAA published a notice of proposed rulemaking within 1 month of one other
    mandated rulemaking project.

    Figure 13: Case Study of FAA?s Rulemaking to Revise Procedures for Aircraft
    Registry

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    FAA?s Reforms Addressed Long- standing Rulemaking Problems but Did Not
    Reduce

    Chapt er 3

    Rulemaking Times To respond to congressional concerns about the timeliness
    of its rulemaking process and address long- standing problems (see ch. 1),
    FAA began implementing reform initiatives in January 1998 to improve the
    process in two of the three central areas we have identified: management
    involvement and process administration. FAA considered but did not implement
    most initiatives to improve human capital management. Other agencies have
    also implemented reforms to address similar types of problems. FAA?s median
    times to proceed from initiation of rulemaking

    through the release of the proposed rule for public comment and to finalize
    the rule after the close of the public comment period did not improve after
    FAA implemented its 1998 reforms. Despite FAA?s reforms, the time taken for
    departmental review and approval of FAA?s significant rules was not reduced.
    In addition, fewer rules were published while proposed and final rules
    remained in the rulemaking process for longer periods of time.

    FAA?s 1998 Efforts to FAA began implementing reform initiatives in January
    1998 to improve its Improve Rulemaking

    rulemaking process in two of the three central areas we have identified:
    management involvement and process administration. FAA considered but
    Addressed Longstanding did not implement most initiatives to improve human
    capital management.

    Problems FAA Took Steps to Improve

    FAA developed initiatives aimed at improving management?s ability to
    Management Involvement in coordinate and set priorities, resolve policy
    questions, and streamline the

    Process review process. To improve the coordination of leadership throughout
    the

    process, FAA established a rulemaking steering committee and a rulemaking
    management council. Rather than existing within any one FAA office, the
    committee and council are made up of members of all offices with current
    rulemaking responsibilities (see ch. 1, table 1). The steering

    committee is primarily responsible for determining FAA?s rulemaking
    priorities; the rulemaking management council manages the rulemaking
    process. As the Administrator said in establishing the two groups in
    February 1998:

    ?With the direct involvement of senior- level management in the rulemaking
    process, I anticipate a dynamic rulemaking program that more directly meets
    the safety and technology challenges of a rapidly evolving aviation
    industry.? 1

    In particular, to address long- standing concerns about delays that occurred
    during departmental review and approval of its significant rules (see ch.
    2), FAA included a representative from OST on its rulemaking steering
    committee and management council, hoping that improved coordination

    would reduce the time taken for OST?s review. Table 2 shows the members and
    duties of FAA?s steering committee and management council. Table 2:
    Membership and Duties of FAA?s Rulemaking Management Groups

    Title Membership Duties

    Steering committee FAA assistant and associate administrators with
    Determine priorities current rulemaking responsibilities Chief counsel

     Resolve disputes that cannot be settled at the A representative from OST
    management council level Management council Director- level managers at FAA
    headquarters with  Ensure that rulemaking projects align with agency
    current rulemaking responsibilities

    priorities A representative from OST  Allocate resources for projects
    Monitor the quality of the process

     Resolve policy issues and rulemaking process problems  Delegate
    appropriate level of authority to

    rulemaking teams Source: FAA?s Rulemaking Manual.

    To formalize the new process and provide consistent and comprehensive
    guidance to rulemaking staff and management, FAA also developed a new
    rulemaking manual. Among other things, this manual suggested time frames for
    steps in the rulemaking process and established a system for the steering
    committee to follow in prioritizing rulemaking projects, as shown in table
    3. 1 Memo, Subject: Letter of Appointment, Direction, and Charter of
    Rulemaking Management Council, FAA Administrator (Feb. 17, 1998).

    Tabl e 3: FAA?s System for Prioritizing Rulemaking Projects Priority
    Characteristics of projects

    A Have congressional, high- level, or departmental interest Support the
    strategic objectives of the agency Are scheduled for issuance within 6
    months Have project schedules that the agency is committed to meeting B Have
    a moderate priority

    Are assigned as agency resources permit Are generally not actively worked
    on, according to rulemaking officials

    U Have the lowest priority Are not scheduled for completion Usually have
    little or no resources to develop them Can be considered inactive

    Source: FAA?s Rulemaking Manual and FAA?s Office of Rulemaking.

    Finally, to maximize the efficient use of employees? and management?s time,
    FAA planned to limit reviews to those that added value and to delegate more
    responsibility for rulemaking decisions to rulemaking teams. Prior to the
    reforms, both nonsignificant and significant rules went through

    multiple layers of internal review. This practice stemmed more from agency
    protocol than from necessary oversight. For example, a team member?s
    decision could pass through sequential reviews by his or her immediate
    managers, office directors, associate administrators, and the Office of the
    Administrator. FAA proposed eliminating intermediate manager and director-
    level review and approval for both nonsignificant and significant rules so
    that rules could pass directly from teams to associate

    administrators. In doing so, FAA hoped to use available resources more
    efficiently, improve team members? morale, and reduce delays. However, the
    agency stopped short of eliminating review and approval of significant rules
    by associate administrators, as was recommended in studies of FAA?s
    rulemaking in 1988, 1996, and 1997. According to officials from the Office
    of Rulemaking, the revised process was designed to enable the management
    council to delegate coordination and approval of nonsignificant rules to
    managers below the associate administrator level and the reform was intended
    to allow teams to act with the full knowledge of their respective associate
    administrator?s position on important issues.

    FAA Took Steps to To address problems in administering the rulemaking
    process, FAA

    Administer the Process implemented a series of reforms. These reforms were
    primarily designed to More Efficiently clarify the extent and limitations of
    each team member?s roles and

    responsibilities, to improve the monitoring of rules and the management of
    rulemaking documents throughout the process, and to ensure ongoing
    evaluation of the process. Given the potential complexity of rulemaking
    issues, inconsistent and unclear lines of responsibility between policy,
    technical, legal, and economic reviews have historically slowed the

    rulemaking process. In its reform, FAA documented in the rulemaking manual
    the roles and responsibilities for each member of the rulemaking team.
    Specific appendixes in this manual detail the purpose, intent, and
    limitations of legal and economic reviews.

    FAA also created a new system for monitoring rule status and document
    management, the Integrated Rulemaking Management Information System, which
    was designed to increase the use of automation in the rulemaking process.
    According to FAA?s Office of Rulemaking, its new system consolidated the
    functions of the existing rulemaking tracking and document management
    systems. The new system was designed to also provide access to a regulatory
    guidance library and the DOT?s Docket Management System.

    Finally, FAA developed rulemaking quality standards and established a
    continuous improvement team and a quality team to ensure ongoing evaluation
    of the rulemaking process, monitor the quality of rulemaking documents, and
    provide recommendations on potential improvements to the process. FAA?s
    rulemaking quality standards are documented in an

    appendix to its rulemaking manual, Rulemaking Quality Standard and Guide.
    The guide offers practical tips, provides techniques, and suggests
    references and examples for rulemaking writers. FAA?s continuous

    improvement team- envisioned as a staff- level team- was established to
    review the evaluations from rulemaking teams in order to provide
    recommendations to the rulemaking management council on improvements to the
    process to be incorporated into the rulemaking manual. Similarly, the role
    of the rulemaking quality team- envisioned as a management- level team- was
    to continually monitor and improve the quality of rulemaking documents and
    provide recommendations to the rulemaking management council on improvements
    to the process. These two teams were consolidated in 1999 because FAA
    management concluded

    that the two functions were difficult to separate and that both functions
    would benefit from both staff- and management- level participation.

    FAA Considered but Did Not To promote accountability in the rulemaking
    process, the working team for Fully Implement

    the 1997 study recommended a number of human capital management
    Recommendations to strategies to improve the training, evaluation, and
    rewarding of rulemaking

    Improve Human Capital staff. The team recommended that FAA provide
    orientation training on the new rulemaking process to all staff involved in
    rulemaking efforts. It also

    Management recommended skills assessment and additional ongoing training on

    functional skill development, conflict resolution, facilitation and
    consensus- based decisionmaking, project management, and team leader
    training. To measure efficiency and reward performance more consistently,

    the team recommended that FAA establish performance measures in the areas of
    rule- processing times, rule quality, and rulemaking productivity, as well
    as systems for performance evaluation. It also recommended that FAA develop
    a guide to clarify to supervisors the conditions to consider when granting
    rewards for good performance in rulemaking and to specify possible rewards.
    As discussed in chapter 4, FAA considered but did not take steps to formally
    implement these recommendations related to performance evaluation and
    rewards. According to the Office of Rulemaking, the staff resources needed
    to develop and implement these

    initiatives were not available because rulemaking staff and management were
    fully occupied with the day- to- day management of the rulemaking process.
    As a result, FAA relied on existing training and rewards systems. Other
    Federal Agencies

    During our investigation, we also discussed rulemaking reform with Have
    Undertaken

    rulemaking officials from several other federal regulatory agencies whose
    rules involved public safety to identify what steps they had taken to
    Reforms to Address

    improve their rulemaking processes. Although an evaluation of the Similar
    Problems

    effectiveness of the reforms undertaken by other regulatory agencies was
    beyond the scope of this review, the results of our discussions with the
    other rulemaking officials showed that the reforms other agencies have
    proposed or implemented are in some cases similar to those proposed by FAA,
    and they generally address the same types of problems faced by FAA.

    For example, officials at several agencies we talked with considered
    management involvement a crucial element of an efficient rulemaking process.
    They used a variety of ways to improve management involvement, including the
    use of senior management councils and rulemaking coordinators. For example,
    EPA told us they established a regulatory policy council of senior
    management, as well as regulatory coordinators across EPA to manage
    priorities and resources. Other approaches cited by

    regulatory agencies we contacted included the use of agency ombudsmen

    and ?senior champions.? Officials at the FMCSA said a regulatory ombudsman
    outside of agency program offices is responsible for moving rules through
    the process and tracking rules against established milestones. According to
    FMCSA officials, the ombudsman has the authority to resolve disagreements
    affecting timely processing; ensure sufficient staffing to meet statutory
    and internal deadlines; and represent FMCSA in discussions about individual
    rulemakings with other organizations, including OST, OMB, and other federal
    agencies. Rulemaking officials at FDA told us they assign a ?senior
    champion? from the agency?s program offices to be responsible for scheduling
    rulemaking

    actions and ensuring that timely actions are taken. FDA officials said that
    the senior champion concept improves accountability by establishing a single
    point of responsibility. To reduce layers of internal review, other federal
    agencies have taken steps to delegate authority by limiting the amount of
    sequential review that takes place. For example, FDA officials said they
    limit a program office?s concurrence procedures and sign- off requirements
    to include only necessary staff. Rulemaking officials of the

    APHIS said that, in April 1999, they began limiting all staff organizations?
    reviews of regulatory packages to 2 weeks. Finally, senior managers at the
    EPA said they provide flexibility to associate and regional administrators
    to determine what procedures to follow on a rule- by- rule basis, allowing
    managers more autonomy to tailor procedures to fit different needs. To
    better administer the rulemaking process, other federal agencies have
    developed automated tracking systems to monitor the progress of

    regulations under development, established evaluation systems for learning
    about delays in the process, and initiated appropriate actions to overcome
    internal delays. For example, FDA uses a tracking system to monitor the
    progress of all regulatory documents, which helps expedite the

    internal clearance process for regulations under development. FDA officials
    said that the tracking system has saved FDA time in processing regulations
    but had not estimated the amount of time saved.

    In the area of human capital management, other federal agencies cited a
    number of initiatives for training and performance measurement and
    evaluation. For example, to provide regulation writers with the training
    necessary to adequately prepare draft regulations, officials from APHIS

    encourage rulemaking staff to attend available courses and conferences or
    advisory committee meetings on the relevant subjects. The officials also
    encourage staff to seek technical support in drafting regulations and said
    that agencies could encourage, through incentives, technical staff to
    provide technical assistance to regulation writers. In addition, FDA

    officials suggested using a mentor program for new staff or existing staff
    to encourage them to consult with experienced regulation writers. Other
    agencies have established quality standards for their rulemaking to measure
    the performance of their rulemaking processes. For example, EPA measures the
    quality of regulatory documents and holds senior managers accountable for
    ensuring that regulatory actions meet the definition of a

    quality action. When program offices at EPA are unable to demonstrate that
    they can develop quality actions, fewer rulemaking actions will be assigned
    to them. According to EPA regulatory officials, this is an incentive for
    senior managers to develop quality rules. At FMCSA, officials said they had
    a formal structure of accountability of rulemaking products and dates in
    performance agreements that involve the head of the agency down to division
    directors. These performance agreements have specific

    rulemakings that include dates for which the staff is held accountable. In
    addition, FMCSA has a supplemental statement to the performance agreement
    for every staff member for rulemaking work products and dates. Despite
    Reforms, FAA?s

    The median time FAA took to proceed from formal initiation of rulemaking
    Rulemaking Times Did through publication of the final rule increased from
    about 30 months in the 3- year period prior to the reform (fiscal years 1995
    to 1997) to 38 months in Not Improve

    the 3- year period following the reform (fiscal years 1998 to 2000). FAA?s
    median times for proceeding from initiation through release of the proposed
    rule for public comment and for proceeding from the close of the public
    comment period through publication of the final rule both increased by more
    than 3 months after the reforms. Specifically, the median time FAA took to
    proceed from initiation through the release of the proposed rule for public
    comment increased from 16.5 months in the 3- year period prior to

    the reforms to 20.4 months in the 3- year period following the reforms. The
    median time FAA took to finalize the rule after the close of the public
    comment period increased from 14 months to 16. 3 months during the same

    time periods, as shown in figure 14.

    Figure 14: Median Time FAA Took to Process Significant Proposed and Final
    Rules for Periods Before and Since FAA?s Reforms

    Note: These processing times do not include the public comment period. One
    final rule that was completed in fiscal year 1998 was included in fiscal
    year 1997 in this chart because it was completed prior to FAA?s reform in
    January 1998. The median may not equal the arithmetic average (mean).
    Because the mean gives greater influence to extreme values in assessing
    processing time for

    rulemaking, we elected to present median values. The change in the mean or
    average values for the 3- year periods before and after FAA?s reform are as
    follows: the average time taken to process proposed rules decreased
    slightly, from 35.4 to 35. 3 months, and the average time taken to process
    final rules increased from 19.3 to 29.8 months. Source: GAO?s analysis of
    FAA and Federal Register data.

    Rulemaking Reforms Did The time OST took to review and approve rules did not
    improve after FAA

    Not Reduce the Time Taken reformed its rulemaking process in 1998. Overall,
    for both proposed and for Departmental Review final rules, the median time
    OST took to approve rules (including review, and Approval of FAA?s

    comment, and FAA?s response, if any) increased from about 125 days before
    FAA?s reforms to about 130 days after the reforms, an increase of about 5
    Significant Rules days after the reforms. Measuring the proposed and final
    rules separately, we found that the median time taken for OST?s approval of
    proposed rules

    increased by 2 days, while the median time taken for OST?s approval of final
    rules decreased by 1 day, as shown in figure 15.

    Figure 15: Median Time OST Took to Approve FAA?s Significant Proposed and
    Final Rules for Periods Before and Since FAA?s Reforms

    Note: Because FAA?s system did not contain comparable data for all proposed
    and final rules, the number of proposed and final rules in figure 15 do not
    match those provided in figure 14. One final rule that was completed in
    fiscal year 1998 was included in fiscal year 1997 in this chart because it
    was completed prior to FAA?s reform in January 1998. The median may not
    equal the arithmetic average (mean). Because the mean gives greater
    influence to extreme values in assessing processing time for rulemaking, we
    elected to present median values. The change in the mean or average values
    for the 3- year periods before and after FAA?s reform are as follows: the
    average processing times for OST?s review and approval of proposed rules
    increased from 6.1 to 9.2 months, and the average processing times for final
    rules decreased from 5.4 to 3.3 months. Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA and
    Federal Register data.

    The Number of Significant Since 1998, FAA has published fewer rules. As
    shown in figure 14, FAA

    Rules Published Declined as finalized 18 significant final rules in the 3-
    year period prior to implementing

    Proposed and Final Rules its reform. In the 3- year period following the
    reform, FAA finalized only 11

    Remained in the Process significant final rules. FAA rulemaking officials
    attributed the change in productivity of significant rules to the agency?s
    efforts to classify more

    Longer rulemakings as nonsignificant and, thus, to decrease levels of
    evaluation

    and review within FAA, as well as to eliminate review by the Department and
    OMB. However, the number of nonsignificant rules the agency published from
    1995 to 2000 do not reflect this. For example, FAA published almost 50
    nonsignificant proposed and final rules each year in 1995 and 1996, as
    compared to less than 30 nonsignificant proposed and final rules each year
    in 1999 and 2000.

    In the years since FAA?s reforms, the median time that initiated significant
    rulemaking projects had remained in the process without being released for
    public comment (the proposed rule stage) increased by more than 4 years from
    the end of fiscal year 1997 to the end of the fiscal year 2000. At

    the same time, the median time that FAA?s unpublished significant final
    rulemaking projects remained in the process after going through the public
    comment period also increased, by about 5 months. This is shown in figure
    16.

    Figure 16: Median Time FAA?s Unpublished Significant Proposed and Final
    Rules Had Been in Process as of September 30, 1997, and September 30, 2000
    Note: Ten of the 24 unpublished proposed rules and 10 of the 19 unpublished
    final rules included in the 1997 medians remained unpublished at the end of
    fiscal year 2000 and thus were also included in the fiscal year 2000
    medians. The median may not equal the arithmetic average (mean). Because the
    mean gives greater influence to extreme values in assessing processing time
    for rulemaking, we elected to present median values. The change in the mean
    or average values for the 3- year periods before and after FAA?s reform are
    as follows: the average time proposed rules remained unpublished

    increased from 3.9 to 7.2 years, and the average time final rules remained
    unpublished increased from 6.0 to 6.9 years. Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA
    data.

    FAA?s Suggested Time As part of its rulemaking reform in January 1998, FAA
    established its own Frames Often Not Met

    time frames for developing and publishing proposed and final rules, as shown
    in figure 17.

    Figure 17: FAA?s Time Frames for Steps After Initiation of the Rulemaking
    Process Source: Based on FAA?s Rulemaking Manual, December 1998.

    Although these time frames were established as a part of FAA?s reforms and
    were, thus, not an applicable standard for rulemaking efforts prior to the
    reforms, we compared processing times for the 3- year period preceding FAA?s
    reforms to processing times for the 3- year period following FAA?s reforms
    to measure the extent of the change. The percentage of FAA?s proposed rules
    that proceeded from initiation through release for public comment within
    FAA?s suggested time frames dropped from 47 percent prior to the reforms to
    19 percent after the reforms. The percentage of rules that proceeded from
    the close of the public comment period to publication as a final rule within
    FAA?s suggested time frames dropped from 39 percent to 36 percent in the
    same time periods. Overall, FAA did not meet time frames suggested in its
    rule making guidance for more than half of its proposed and final rules
    published, as shown in figure 18.

    Figure 18: Percentage of FAA?s Significant Proposed and Final Rules
    Published Before and Since FAA?s Reforms That Met Time Frames Suggested in
    FAA?s Reform Guidance Note: The time frames suggested in FAA?s guidance are
    450 days (about 15 months) for developing

    proposed rules and 310 days (about 10 months and 10 days) for final rules.
    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA data.

    Incomplete Implementation of FAA's Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Long-
    standing

    Chapt er 4

    Rulemaking Problems Despite the reforms FAA made to its rulemaking process,
    many of the problems that have historically impeded the efficiency of
    rulemaking at FAA continued. Our survey of FAA rulemaking staff showed that
    less than 20 percent agreed that FAA has made the changes necessary to
    improve the rulemaking process. 1 In addition, only about 20 percent of the
    staff surveyed agreed that the rulemaking process has become more efficient
    and effective in the last 2 years. (A copy of the survey is provided in app.
    II.) Our interviews with FAA rulemaking staff and management and our
    observations of specific rulemaking projects supported the staff's

    perception and confirmed that problems in the three central areas of
    management involvement, the administration of the rulemaking process
    (process administration), and human capital continued to slow the process.
    Problems Related to

    Problems related to three general areas of management involvement Management
    continued to slow the process. Multiple, shifting priorities made it
    difficult

    to allocate resources effectively and often disrupted the timing of the
    Involvement Continued rulemaking process. Too often, policy issues were not
    resolved in a timely to Slow the Process

    manner. Finally, multiple layers of review continued to contribute to
    delays. Numerous and Shifting

    An excessive number of rulemaking priorities continued to impair the
    Priorities Created Staffing efficiency of the process. The number of
    projects on FAA's top priority list Resources Problems That grew from 35 in
    February 1998, when FAA established the priority list after

    Slowed the Rulemaking implementing its reforms, to 46 in April 2000. At that
    time, the Associate Administrator for Regulation and Certification said it
    was critical to

    Process shorten that list to a more manageable number. However, the number
    of

    top rulemaking priorities continued to increase, to 49 rules by March 2001.
    According to the Director of the Office of Rulemaking, the maximum number of
    rulemaking projects that can be effectively managed is about 30 to 35
    projects. Rulemaking officials cited external and internal pressures to add
    rules to its priority list, noting that the agency's priorities change due
    to

    external influences such as accidents, NTSB recommendations and
    congressional actions and mandates. Internally, they attributed the growth
    in the number of priority rulemaking projects in part to a lack of
    commitment to the reformed process of some participants and to what they

    1 We surveyed 134 FAA rulemaking staff members that worked on significant
    rules since fiscal year 1994 and received 109 responses, a response rate of
    about 81 percent. Additional details are provided in chapter 1 in the
    objectives, scope, and methodology section.

    described as ?parochial? views of priorities that resulted in efforts to
    circumvent the decisions of the rulemaking steering committee. For example,
    officials said that some program offices circumvented the approval process
    for adding rulemaking projects to the top priority list by adding projects
    to their own short- term incentive plans, creating pressure on the steering
    committee to add the rules to the top priority list. Our survey of
    rulemaking staff showed that less than one- third (29 percent) of

    the staff agreed that senior managers supported the steering committee's
    decisions regarding priorities.

    Not only were too many rules given top priority, but changes in the relative
    ranking of ?top? priorities created problems in managing staffing resources,
    thereby increasing the processing time for significant rules. Eighty- three
    percent of the survey respondents agreed that changing priorities in the
    rulemaking process caused delays in the process. Team members said they were
    frequently pulled off of top- priority rules to work on other projects that
    their management considered higher priority. They noted that these
    disruptions created delays.

    It is important to note that, while some of the causes of shifting
    priorities stem from the current rulemaking process and can be changed,
    others relate to events that FAA cannot control. For example, new safety
    issues may emerge whenever there is an aviation accident. In addition,
    rulemaking efforts in progress that are related to issues such as safety
    threats can be overtaken by new events that then drive the agency's

    priorities. While the agency can monitor the effects of outside situations,
    there is little it can do to control them. Figure 19 provides an
    illustration of the impact of events on FAA's development of a proposed rule
    on aviation

    security.

    Figure 19: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Revise Airport Security Rules

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    Although FAA cannot prevent unexpected events from influencing its
    rulemaking priorities, FAA's system for prioritizing rules established as
    part of its 1998 reform lacks explicit criteria to guide rulemaking
    management in establishing and ranking the priority of projects and
    assigning available resources. While FAA's rulemaking manual describes
    factors that must be considered in prioritizing rulemaking projects- such as
    the legislative time frames established by the Congress and projects

    initiated in response to special commissions and the NTSB- the policy does
    not define how these criteria should be ranked in order of importance.

    Identifying and ranking the agency's top rulemaking priorities is important
    because FAA's ?A? list includes the Administrator's priorities as well as
    other top priority rules sponsored by different offices. The FAA
    Administrator's set of rulemaking priorities constitute about half of the
    ?A? list of projects that are actively worked on. For example, in July 2000,
    21 of the agency's 45 top priority rules were on the Administrator's list.
    Yet FAA's policy for determining rulemaking priorities does not establish
    the relative importance of the different factors that rulemaking managers
    must consider in determining the priority of rules within the ?A? list of
    top

    priority projects. Without clear criteria for determining the rules'
    relative ranking and consensus among all offices involved in rulemaking,
    rulemaking managers may have difficulty in objectively determining, for
    example, whether legislated time frames take precedence over the
    Administrator's priorities or the safety recommendations of the NTSB. Thus,
    a final ranking is de facto left to the steering committee, which is made up
    of managers whose priorities are tied to the functions of their individual
    offices. One result is that managers from different offices may be more
    likely to allocate their staff resources on an ad- hoc, short- term basis,
    rather than in a strategic fashion to complete the agency's highest priority

    rules. During our review, the Office of Rulemaking suggested that one way of
    allocating staff resources to ensure that top priority rules are completed
    is to ?dedicate? team members to work on rules until they are completed.
    This approach was recommended in previous reviews of FAA's rulemaking
    process and is used in FAA's acquisitions of air traffic control equipment.
    According to the Office of Rulemaking, if this approach was put into place,

    managers of offices involved in rulemaking activities, including the offices
    involved in legal, technical, and economic analyses as well as the Office of
    Rulemaking, would ensure that rulemaking team members worked only on the
    highest priority rule by dedicating their staffs to that project. FAA

    successfully used this approach to develop its ?commuter rule? in 1995, as
    shown in figure 20.

    Figure 20: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Revise Commuter Operations and
    General Certification and Operations Requirements Source: GAO?s analysis of
    FAA information.

    The Office of Rulemaking, which also cited changing priorities as an ongoing
    problem, noted that a continuing lack of realism in prioritizing fostered a
    sense of overload on the part of rulemaking staff. Our survey of rulemaking
    staff showed that only about 17 percent agreed that the amount

    of work was reasonable, allowing team members to produce high- quality
    products and services. Furthermore, less than one- third (about 30 percent)
    agreed that management from their office provided sufficient staff and
    resources to support and promote improvement in the rulemaking process.

    Management Difficulties in On some rulemaking projects, the time FAA
    management took to resolve Resolving Complex Policy complex policy issues
    added years to the overall time taken to complete Issues Continued to Slow
    the rule. Based on findings that sequential review and decisionmaking by the
    Rulemaking Process

    management late in the process had previously caused problems such as
    extensive backlogs, rework, and delays, FAA intended in its reform to
    promote a proactive management approach in which policy decisions

    would be made early in the process. However, only about 28 percent of the
    rulemaking staff we surveyed agreed that senior management focused on the
    prevention of problems rather than on the correction of problems, and only
    11 percent of the staff surveyed agreed that sequential processing does not
    impact the timeliness of the rulemaking process. Figure 21 provides a case
    study of a rulemaking effort related to Flight Operational Quality Assurance
    (FOQA) Programs in which management's inability to resolve difficult policy
    issues early in the process contributed significantly to the

    overall time the rule has been in the process. This rule has taken years to
    develop because of complex policy issues that at the time of our review
    still had not been resolved. The policy issues concern the waiving of
    enforcement actions for violations discovered through FOQA data voluntarily
    provided by airlines. Agency officials said that the reason this issue has
    been so difficult to resolve is that the rule could set a precedent that
    would affect other regulatory agencies' enforcement efforts, and it
    therefore has ramifications beyond the Department's efforts to improve

    aviation safety. As a result, they considered their rulemaking efforts to be
    a management success.

    Figure 21: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Govern Air Carriers' Flight
    Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    Multiple Levels of Delays in the process caused by multiple layers of review
    within the agency Management Review continued despite FAA's reform efforts
    because the reduction in layers of Continued to Slow the

    review and the level of employee empowerment envisioned in FAA's Process
    reform did not materialize. In reviewing approved project records, we found
    that delegation of authority beyond the director's office had not been
    achieved in spite of FAA's plans to do so. (FAA's plans are detailed in ch.
    3.) For example, in reviewing projects approved since the reform was
    implemented in January 1998, we found that in five of six projects not only
    did the directors of team members' offices review and approve team

    members' decisions, but so did their immediate managers and other managers.
    In 1997, FAA had concluded that multiple layers of review fostered a lack of
    accountability in the rulemaking process and that this, in turn, led to
    milestones that were unrealistic or not observed because final
    responsibility for the project was unclear. Our survey of rulemaking team
    members showed that few (4 percent) agreed that layers of review did not
    interfere with the timely processing of

    rules. As noted above, only 11 percent agreed that sequential processing
    does not impact the time required to complete the rulemaking process.
    Finally, a minority of the respondents agreed they had the ability to
    establish realistic schedules; 36 percent of the survey respondents agreed
    that rulemaking teams set realistic schedules, and 19 percent of rulemaking
    staff agreed that rulemaking teams have sufficient control over the
    rulemaking process to set realistic milestones. Senior rulemaking managers
    at FAA said that there was a fine line between

    employee empowerment and the need for adequate oversight, particularly for
    rules that were likely to have a significant economic or other impact on the
    aviation industry. They said that FAA's reform was not intended to eliminate
    managers from decisionmaking in the rulemaking process or give rulemaking
    teams total independence, noting that the primary focus of the rulemaking
    reform effort was to reduce the levels of review for nonsignificant rules.
    According to officials from the Office of Rulemaking, review and approval of
    certain nonsignificant rules that would harmonize certification requirements
    for passenger aircraft established by the Joint Aviation Authorities (FAA's
    European counterpart) have already been delegated below the level of
    associate administrators.

    Our discussions with rulemaking staff revealed a variety of reasons why they
    strongly disagreed that rulemaking teams had enough control over the process
    to set realistic milestones. Staff noted that internal management decisions
    to change rulemaking priorities before a project was completed

    and external reviews by OST caused process delays and were beyond their
    control. Less than 2 percent of the rulemaking team members agreed that
    departmental reviews improved the timeliness of the rulemaking process,

    and less than 15 percent agreed that departmental reviews improved the
    quality of rulemaking. Figure 22 shows the impact of coordination with OST
    on FAA's time frames in its rulemaking efforts to revise regulations
    governing the standards for aircraft repair stations.

    Figure 22: Case Study of FAA's Rulemaking to Revise Aircraft Repair Station
    Regulations

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    FAA's internal review process reflects the lack of empowerment as well.
    Officials from OST and the Office of Rulemaking said that the requirement
    for numerous layers of review reflects FAA's hierarchical management

    structure and that the lack of empowerment is embodied in FAA's ?grid sheet?
    for signing off on a proposed rule. The grid sheet can involve 20 different
    signatures, each indicating a different layer of review. Moreover, they said
    that these extensive reviews can reduce accountability, noting that, because
    FAA requires a lot of signatures, rulemaking documents are sometimes passed
    through the process without FAA officials reading them. Figure 23
    illustrates the multiple layers of review that occurred in reaching team
    concurrence for a proposed rule to require that emergency medical equipment
    be carried aboard certain passenger aircraft. Figure 23: Case Study of FAA's
    Rulemaking to Require Emergency Medical Equipment on Aircraft

    Source: GAO?s analysis of FAA information.

    DOT officials said that the time needed for their review and approval of
    FAA's significant rules can be lengthy if FAA's position is not thoroughly
    evaluated in terms of departmental policy early in the rulemaking process.
    DOT officials also cited lack of coordination among FAA's program offices

    and a lack of empowerment and accountability of rulemaking teams as problems
    that continued to contribute to delays in the process. They said that
    departmental review served a valuable role in ensuring that OMB's concerns
    were adequately addressed and noted, for example, that OST's efforts to
    coordinate proposed changes were hindered when FAA staff did not have the
    authority to make the suggested changes. Problems in Process

    Problems in three central areas related to the administration of the
    Administration

    rulemaking process continued to contribute to delays. Significant confusion
    persisted regarding the roles and responsibilities of rulemaking Continued
    to Impair team members. Information systems lacked complete, accurate, or
    current Rulemaking

    data and were inconsistently used. Finally, key elements of a continuous
    improvement program to identify and correct problems in the process were not
    in place.

    Confusion Remained Although FAA attempted to address confusion over roles
    and

    Regarding the Roles and responsibilities in its reforms, our survey
    indicated that only about 40

    Responsibilities of percent of the individuals we surveyed agreed that the
    ?roles and

    Participants responsibilities are clearly understood.? In addition, less
    than half (47 percent) of the survey respondents agreed that ?roles and
    responsibilities

    are clearly established.? The effort by the Office of Rulemaking to define
    roles and responsibilities for rulemaking participants in its rulemaking
    manual did not appear to have eliminated confusion. As we indicated in
    chapter 3, the manual describes the specific roles of legal and economic
    reviewers. According to FAA's guidance, legal reviews should focus on the
    legal authority for the action proposed, compliance of the proposal with
    applicable laws, and whether the requirements being imposed are stated with
    sufficient clarity and justification to be enforced and defended in court,
    if need be. Economic reviews should estimate the costs and benefits of a
    proposed or final rulemaking. However, rulemaking management said that legal
    reviews continued, in some cases, to focus on nonlegal issues and that the
    scope of

    economic reviews could potentially be reduced. Senior legal staff involved
    in the rulemaking process noted that FAA's Chief Counsel is a political
    appointee whose role as advisor to the Administrator can result in the

    office's involvement in policy issues, as well as assessments of the quality
    of analyses conducted to support rules.

    Information Systems In September 2000, we reported on the importance of
    information

    Consistently Track Only ?A? technology resources for federal agencies to
    gather and share information, 2 List Rules and Are Not and FAA officials
    cited the development of a rulemaking management Consistently Used

    information system as a major element of its rulemaking reforms. According
    to FAA's Office of Rulemaking, its new automated system consolidated the
    functions of the existing project- tracking and documentmanagement systems.
    FAA's tracking of its 24 ?A? list significant rules on this system has
    established data on rulemaking times for specific steps that should help it
    to monitor the rulemaking process. However, the small number of rules that
    it consistently tracks and a lack of agencywide implementation has made the
    system less useful than it could potentially be. Because FAA used the
    project- tracking portion of the automated system only for its ?A? list of
    priority projects, including 24 significant rules, the

    system was missing complete and accurate data for many of the remainder of
    FAA's significant rulemaking projects. FAA rulemaking officials said that
    they did not have the resources available to complete, correct, or update
    records of rules that were not being actively worked on from the agency's
    ?A? list of rules, citing resource limitations. However, since previously
    initiated rulemaking projects may be shifted onto the ?A? list, historical
    data could be useful for measuring the performance of the rulemaking

    process over time. FAA rulemaking officials also noted that FAA's rulemaking
    policy allows teams to select milestones on a case- by- case basis. However,
    continuing to consider some milestones in the system voluntary may result in
    a lack of consistent and comparable information on rules. Without complete,
    accurate, and consistent data on all FAA's rulemaking projects, FAA

    managers will not be able to use the information system to its fullest
    capacity- to measure the time elapsed between specific steps in the process
    to identify where and to what extent delays occur over time. Since the
    rulemaking process can take years to complete, a longer- term management
    perspective on the performance of the process is essential. 2 Human Capital:
    A Self- Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders, (GAO/ OCG- 00- 14G, Sept.
    2000).

    FAA agreed that additional performance and statistical measures should be
    incorporated into the reporting system to enhance its ability to manage the
    process and said it had begun making changes to the system.

    The document management portion of the automated system was limited in its
    usefulness because it had not been fully implemented across all offices
    involved in rulemaking. FAA's technology plan called for an ?automation

    champion? to lead the initiative across all of the affected offices.
    However, according to the Office of Rulemaking, FAA had not designated a
    champion or developed a plan or goals for an integrated system outside the
    Office of Rulemaking. As a result, offices outside of the Office of
    Rulemaking had

    not fully implemented the new system. Although all rulemaking team members
    received initial training on the new system, only 26 percent of the
    respondents to our survey agreed that rulemaking team members were provided
    with training when new technologies and tools were introduced. After the
    initial training, we found that the system was not effectively implemented
    outside of the Office of Rulemaking. We reviewed the rulemaking documents in
    the system for four significant

    safety- related rules and found that since FAA's reforms in 1998, only 1 of
    27 rulemaking staff outside of the Office of Rulemaking on the 4 rulemaking
    teams had used the automated system. This staff person used the system

    only twice, on the same day in February 1998. Although officials from the
    Office of Rulemaking said that the new system was available to all
    rulemaking staff, only about 23 percent of the survey respondents agreed
    that their coworkers used FAA's automated capabilities to record

    rulemaking actions. Individuals from the Office of the Chief Counsel said
    that they either did not have access to the automated system or that their
    computers were not capable of using the rulemaking software. While
    economists in the Office of Policy and Plans with whom we spoke had access
    to the system, they said that the software was too cumbersome. One economist
    said that he preferred to develop rulemaking documents that were
    inaccessible to change by other team members in order to maintain the
    integrity of his work product.

    FAA's Implementation of Despite explicit efforts in the rulemaking reform to
    establish systems to

    Continuous Improvement evaluate the new process and establish quality
    standards and guidance, Efforts Was Incomplete

    FAA had not fully implemented a continuous improvement or quality review
    program. The concept of continuous improvement is embodied in quality
    management principles as well as the Government Performance and

    Results Act. 3 Continuous improvement efforts are essential for identifying

    problems in the rulemaking process. However, continuous improvement and
    quality management teams established in FAA's reforms reported problems in
    attempting to implement review systems. In the fall of 1999, members of the
    continuous improvement team expressed concerns about the purpose and
    authority of the team related to management's participation in establishing
    and supporting the evaluation

    function. To improve the effectiveness of the system, FAA combined the teams
    to include both staff and management. Despite the reorganization, little
    substantive work had been done in the area of process improvement at the
    time of our review. For example, project teams are to complete a

    ?lessons learned? evaluation after publication of a proposed rule to
    document practices and procedures that worked well, identify problem areas,
    and determine opportunities to improve the entire rulemaking process.
    However, since the process was reformed in January 1998 through fiscal year
    1999, we found that FAA had not documented any evaluations. The quality and
    continuous improvement teams were also expected to review sample rulemaking
    documents during the progress of a selected project, perform periodic
    quality assurance reviews with selected rulemaking teams, and make
    recommendations to the management council regarding their findings. However,
    none of these quality review functions had been accomplished. No evaluations
    or recommendations had been

    documented, and the rulemaking manual had not been updated since its
    publication in December 1998. In discussing the issue at a steering
    committee meeting, members of the management council attributed the lack of
    implementation of process improvement efforts to an inadequate level of
    organizational commitment to the reformed process. Rulemaking officials said
    that, although the continuous improvement team met on a

    regular basis to discuss lessons learned, the team had not documented the
    results of their discussions. They said they planned to incorporate the
    ability to document lessons learned in the next version of the management
    information system and that they were updating the rulemaking manual. They
    also said that another team, made up of managers from key offices,

    has met monthly and sometimes weekly to implement and improve the reformed
    process. 3 Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government
    Performance and Results

    Act, (GAO/ GGD- 96- 118, June 1996).

    Human Capital Human capital management initiatives focusing on training,
    performance

    Management Initiatives measurement and evaluation, and rewards for
    rulemaking efficiency and

    quality work were generally not implemented at the time of our review. for
    Rulemaking According to the National Performance Review, which made
    Activities Were

    recommendations regarding federal agencies' rulemaking processes in
    Overlooked 1993, proper training, performance measurement, and performance
    incentives are needed to ensure that the agency officials involved in
    regulatory activities work as effectively as possible. We reported on the

    importance of training, performance measures, and performance incentives as
    key elements of an effective human capital strategy in September 2000. 4 In
    preparing its 1997 report, FAA's working team recommended a series of human
    capital management initiatives to help rulemaking participants adjust to the
    revised process and foster change throughout FAA. These areas included
    training and skills assessment as

    well as performance measurement, evaluation, and rewards for rulemaking
    participants. Recurring Rulemaking Although FAA's reform plan called for
    orientation training on the new

    Training Was Limited to the rulemaking process and ongoing training in a
    wide range of areas for all Office of Rulemaking Staff

    staff involved in rulemaking, rulemaking participants outside the Office of
    Rulemaking generally received training only on the information system
    software and an introduction to the new process. A formal program for

    continuing the training of all rulemaking team members in the areas of
    functional skill development, conflict resolution, facilitation of and
    consensus- based decisionmaking, project management, and team- leader

    training was not implemented. About 50 percent of the staff surveyed agreed
    that they received the training they needed to perform their jobs.
    Similarly, although FAA's reforms called for the analysis of the skills
    needed to function in the revised rulemaking process and to establish a
    mentoring program, the Office of Rulemaking had not conducted a formal
    analysis, and we found no evidence of such an analysis in the other offices

    involved in rulemaking. Only the Office of Rulemaking had established a
    mentoring program. Representatives from the Office of Policy and Plans and
    the Office of the Chief Counsel said that they had recurring training
    programs, but they agreed that these programs did not include a formal

    4 Human Capital: A Self- Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders, (GAO/ OCG-
    00- 14G, Sept. 2000).

    segment devoted to training to support the rulemaking process, as envisioned
    by the reform. Lack of Rulemaking As we reported in January 2000, 5 a key
    element of human capital Performance Measurement, management is the use of
    performance management systems, including pay

    Evaluation, and Rewards and other incentives, to link performance to
    results. However, in the area of

    Hinders Effectiveness of rulemaking, FAA has not consistently done so for
    rulemaking staff and management. Although FAA's reform effort included
    recommendations to Reforms

    measure and evaluate team and individual team member performance and to
    develop an associated rewards system, these human capital management efforts
    were not implemented on a consistent, agencywide basis. According to
    rulemaking officials, the staff resources needed to develop and implement
    these initiatives were not available because rulemaking staff and management
    were fully occupied with the day- to- day management of the rulemaking
    process. As noted above, we found

    evidence that some individual senior managers' performance evaluations
    included rulemaking projects specific to their program areas. The Government
    Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires agencies to pursue performance-
    based management including results- oriented goal setting and performance
    measurement. Although the act gives agencies the impetus for tailoring their
    human capital systems to their specific missions and objectives, it is up to
    agencies, like FAA, to follow through on the opportunity. FAA implemented an
    agencywide effort to link performance with rewards in April 2000. FAA's new
    core compensation plan provides for pay increases tied to performance and
    individual contributions. Despite the

    opportunities provided by the new compensation system, as well as personnel
    reforms enacted in 1996 to provide FAA with greater flexibility in human
    capital management, FAA management has not established systems to measure
    and reward performance in rulemaking based on the quality or timeliness of
    the process. One measure of rulemaking performance is the time taken to
    complete steps in the process to develop and issue a rule. To implement
    rulemaking reforms, senior managers involved in FAA's rulemaking agreed that
    process milestones were appropriate measures of rulemaking

    performance. However, results from our survey of rulemaking staff indicate
    that, while slightly more than one- half (51 percent) agreed that milestones

    5 Human Capital: Key Principles from Nine Private Sector Organizations (GAO/
    GGD- 00- 28, Jan. 31, 2000).

    are used to assess the overall performance of teams, team members did not
    believe that using milestones is an accepted or acceptable means of
    measuring performance. For example, less than one half of the respondents

    (about 48 percent) agreed that senior management holds team members
    accountable when teams do not meet milestones. Only 20 percent agreed that
    senior management is held accountable when teams do not meet milestones.
    Less than 20 percent agreed that rulemaking teams have sufficient control
    over the rulemaking process to set realistic milestones. Only 36 percent of
    the staff agreed that teams set realistic schedules. Only 8

    percent agreed that their offices provide incentives based on the milestones
    of the rulemaking process. Officials in the Office of Rulemaking suggested
    that one method to provide agencywide incentives for timely rulemaking would
    be to include a goal for the agency's timely rulemaking in the short- term
    incentive plans for all senior managers involved in rulemaking.

    The Office of Rulemaking did not develop a separate rulemaking award system
    as recommended by the working team. They said rulemaking awards were given
    based on the preexisting agency award system in which individuals and teams
    are recognized for outstanding performance on

    various projects. Although about 70 percent of the staff surveyed agreed
    that management from their offices provides an environment that ?supports my
    involvement, contributions, and teamwork on the rulemaking team,? few
    rulemaking staff that responded to our survey agreed that teamwork is
    rewarded. Specifically, only 28 percent of rulemaking staff agreed with the
    statement ?I am appropriately rewarded for teamwork in the rulemaking
    process (e. g., performance ratings, cash awards,

    certificates, or public recognition).? Conclusions FAA's reforms of its
    rulemaking process have not fully addressed the longstanding problems that
    can lead to unnecessary delays because the initiatives have either not been
    fully implemented or their implementation has been impaired by a lack of
    management commitment and support. Management's attention to factors
    critical to achieving desired results- establishing baseline data,
    priorities, a plan for addressing root causes, and an evaluation system to
    measure the agency's progress- would facilitate effective implementation of
    the reform initiatives begun in 1998.

    FAA's management committees that were established as a part of the reform
    are a step in the right direction in FAA's efforts to improve management
    involvement, encourage timely resolution of policy issues,

    and reduce layers of review. Clarifying staff and management's roles in the
    process and including performance expectations, measures, evaluations, and
    rewards based on these roles is an essential step in establishing a
    performance system for rulemaking that emphasizes accountability and

    results. The system must hold staff and managers accountable for producing
    timely, quality rules that are needed to improve aviation safety and
    security. Equally essential are automated information systems to monitor the
    performance of the individuals and offices in the process and provide
    information to continually evaluate and improve rulemaking. A performance
    management system is a key element of an effective human capital strategy
    that is the best, and perhaps the only, means of obtaining the needed level
    of commitment and support from FAA management and staff. FAA's new Core
    Compensation Plan that provides for pay increases tied to performance and
    individual contributions offers the agency an

    opportunity to establish new systems for performance measurement,
    evaluation, and rewards based on timeliness and quality in rulemaking for
    all offices involved in the process. Finally, the Wendell H. Ford Aviation
    Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century provides an as yet

    unrealized opportunity for FAA to reduce the number of rules that must go
    through one of the levels of review- the review by the Office of the
    Secretary of Transportation. Adhering to the provisions of the act could
    reduce the processing time for selected significant rules that meet the
    criteria established in the act.

    Recommendations To improve the efficiency of its rulemaking process and reap
    the maximum benefits from its rulemaking reform efforts, we recommend that
    the Secretary of Transportation direct the FAA Administrator to take steps
    to improve management involvement in the rulemaking process by  reducing
    the number of top- priority projects to a manageable number over time by
    limiting the number of projects added until existing

    projects are completed and establishing criteria for ranking the highest
    priority rules so that the lowest ranked of these priority rules may be
    tabled if necessary to allow sufficient resources to be applied to emerging,
    higher- priority projects;

     providing resources sufficient for rulemaking teams to meet the agency's
    suggested time frames. One approach, suggested by the Office of Rulemaking,
    is to prototype the use of dedicated rulemaking teams by assigning staff for
    the duration of rulemaking projects. This approach would give the teams the
    ability to focus their efforts and manage projects to completion;

     holding managers at the director and associate administrator level
    accountable for making and supporting policy decisions as early as possible
    in the rulemaking process; and

     empowering team members by giving them the authority to coordinate with
    their associate administrators so that they can represent the associate
    administrator's policies, thus eliminating the need for the separate step of
    associate administrator's review and approval; empowering team members by
    permitting them to set their own schedules and deadlines; and holding staff
    and management accountable for ensuring that schedules are realistic.

    In addition, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA
    Administrator to take steps to improve administration of the rulemaking
    process by

     clearly communicating the roles and responsibilities of program and
    support staff on rulemaking teams and holding team members and their
    managers accountable for limiting their reviews to established criteria;

     ensuring that information systems used for rulemaking tracking and
    coordination contain current, complete, and accurate data on the status of
    all significant rulemaking projects, including the time elapsed between
    FAA's transmission of rules to OST and the receipt of OST's comments or
    approval; and

     implementing elements of its proposed continuous improvement program and
    using the resulting information to identify problems in the process and
    potential solutions. Finally, the Secretary of Transportation should direct
    the FAA Administrator to take steps to improve human capital management of
    the rulemaking process by establishing a human capital management strategy
    for offices involved in rulemaking that includes

     providing training and support to all participants that promotes use of
    the agency's automated information system and collaborative, teambased
    decisionmaking skills, and assessing the skills of rulemaking staff and
    developing targeted training to better enable them to fulfill their
    rulemaking roles; and

     establishing and implementing performance measures based on expectations,
    evaluations, and incentives that promote timely, quality rules. One approach
    suggested by the Office of Rulemaking would be to include a goal for the
    agency's timely rulemaking in the short- term incentive plans for all senior
    managers involved in rulemaking.

    In addition, we recommend that the Secretary revise departmental policies to
    make them consistent with the provisions of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation
    Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century and reduce the number of
    FAA's significant rules subject to its review.

    Agency Comments We provided a draft of this report to the Office of the
    Secretary of the Department of Transportation and FAA for their review and
    comment. In following discussions, departmental and FAA officials indicated
    that they

    agreed with a number of the draft report's recommendations. For example,
    they said that FAA will take steps to ensure that the rulemaking tracking
    system is completely accurate and up- to- date, and includes all appropriate
    tracking milestones. Furthermore, they agreed that FAA will use its
    continuous improvement program to identify potential process improvements
    and will hold senior management accountable for

    providing policy input as early as possible in the rulemaking process. These
    officials also indicated that some of the draft report's recommendations
    will require further consideration, and that a specific response to each of
    the report's recommendations will be provided in the Department's response
    to the final report. FAA officials provided technical comments, which we
    incorporated into the report. The Department also provided written comments
    on the report,

    which discussed four main points about the results of the review. The full
    text of FAA's written comments is provided in appendix V, along with our
    detailed response to these comments.

    Appendi xes Status of 76 Significant Rules in FAA?s

    Appendi x I

    Workload FY 1995 - FY 2000 Publication of a proposed Publication of the
    Initiation

    rule in the Federal

    final rule in the Terminated or

    Rule title date

    Register Federal Register withdrawn

    1 Revision of Airman Medical Standards 07/ 09/ 82 10/ 21/ 94 03/ 19/ 96 and
    Certification Procedures

    Aircraft Flight Simulator Use in Pilot 01/ 07/ 83 08/ 11/ 92 07/ 02/ 96

    2

    Training, Testing, and Checking and at Training Centers Improved Standards
    for Determining 10/ 07/ 83 11/ 30/ 87 02/ 18/ 98

    3

    Rejected Takeoff and Landing Perfor mance

    4 Passenger- Carrying and Cargo Air 05/ 18/ 84 10/ 12/ 88 12/ 20/ 95

    Operations for Compensation or Hire

    5 Flight Attendant Requirements 02/ 04/ 86 04/ 14/ 89 06/ 06/ 96

    6 Part 145 Review: Repair Stations 09/ 18/ 86 06/ 21/ 99 not yet published
    Type and Number of Passenger

    10/ 15/ 86 02/ 22/ 90 11/ 08/ 96

    7

    Emergency Exits Required in Transport Category Airplanes

    8 Improved Survival Equipment for 05/ 01/ 85 06/ 30/ 88 not yet published

    Inadvertent Water Landings

    9 Air Carrier and Commercial Operator 08/ 01/ 88 12/ 13/ 94 12/ 20/ 95

    Training Programs

    10 Retrofit of Improved Seats in Air Carrier 01/ 26/ 88 05/ 17/ 88 not yet
    published Transport Category Airplanes

    11 Drug Enforcement Assistance 11/ 18/ 88 03/ 12/ 90 not yet published

    12 Sole Radio Navigation System; Minimum 05/ 12/ 89 not yet published

    Standards for Certification Airworthiness Standards; Occupant

    05/ 29/ 87 07/ 14/ 93 06/ 30/ 98

    13

    Protection Standards for Commuter Category Airplanes

    14 Fatigue Evaluation of Structure 04/ 18/ 88 07/ 19/ 93 03/ 31/ 98

    15 Fatigue Test Requirements for Aging 12/ 01/ 89 07/ 07/ 95

    Aircraft

    16 Aircraft Operator Security 03/ 10/ 87 08/ 01/ 97 not yet published

    17 Airport Security 03/ 10/ 87 08/ 01/ 97 not yet published

    18 Alternative Means of Compliance 11/ 02/ 89 02/ 03/ 97

    19 Pilot Operating and Experience 10/ 11/ 90 03/ 23/ 93 04/ 27/ 95

    Requirements

    20 Child Restraint Systems 05/ 30/ 90 02/ 13/ 96

    (Continued From Previous Page)

    Publication of a proposed Publication of the

    Initiation rule in the Federal

    final rule in the Terminated or

    Rule title date

    Register Federal Register withdrawn

    Cost of Services and Transfer of Fees to 06/ 07/ 90 not yet published

    21

    Part 187 from Parts #47, #49, #61, #63, #65, and #143

    22 Unescorted Access Privilege 11/ 27/ 90 02/ 13/ 92 10/ 03/ 95

    23 Aging Aircraft Safety 10/ 29/ 91 10/ 05/ 93 not yet published
    Airworthiness Standards: Systems and 03/ 01/ 94 07/ 22/ 94 02/ 09/ 96

    24

    Equipment Rules based on European Joint Aviation Requirements Airworthiness
    Standards: Powerplant 03/ 01/ 94 06/ 30/ 94 02/ 09/ 96

    25

    Rules based on European Joint Aviation Requirements Airworthiness Standards:
    Flight Rules 07/ 23/ 91 07/ 25/ 94 02/ 09/ 96

    26

    Based on European Joint Aviation Re quirements

    27 Airport Noise Compatibility Planning 08/ 14/ 90 not yet published Anti-
    Drug and Alcohol Misuse Prevention 10/ 29/ 91 12/ 05/ 92 01/ 13/ 00

    28

    Programs for Employees of Foreign Air Carriers Engaged in Specified Aviation
    Activities

    29 Corrosion Control Program 03/ 09/ 93 not yet published

    30 Revised Access to Type III Exits 10/ 30/ 92 01/ 30/ 95 not yet published

    31 Flight Operational Quality Assurance 01/ 11/ 93 07/ 05/ 00 not yet
    published

    Program

    32 National Air Tour Safety Standards 10/ 11/ 90 not yet published Revision
    of Emergency Evacuation 11/ 18/ 93 07/ 18/ 95 not yet published

    33

    Demonstration Procedures to Improve Participant Safety

    34 Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance 04/ 22/ 93 03/ 31/ 94 12/ 29/ 94

    System (TCAS 1) Operations of Jet Aircraft in Commuter

    11/ 10/ 92 02/ 14/ 96

    35

    Slots at LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport

    36 Rules of Practice for Federally- Assisted 04/ 06/ 94 06/ 09/ 94 10/ 16/
    96 Airport Proceedings

    Overflights of Units of the National Park 02/ 17/ 94 not yet published a

    37 System

    38 Child Restraint Systems 07/ 18/ 94 06/ 09/ 95 06/ 04/ 96

    39 Controlled Rest on the Flight Deck 03/ 10/ 93 not yet published

    (Continued From Previous Page)

    Publication of a proposed Publication of the

    Initiation rule in the Federal

    final rule in the Terminated or

    Rule title date

    Register Federal Register withdrawn

    Commuter Operations and General 12/ 06/ 94 03/ 29/ 95 12/ 20/ 95

    40

    Certification and Operations Requirements Flight Crewmember Duty Period

    05/ 24/ 94 12/ 20/ 95 not yet published

    41

    Limitations, Flight Time Limitations and Rest Requirements

    42 Submission to Drug Tests 12/ 01/ 89 02/ 09/ 00

    43 Mountain Flying 01/ 03/ 95 03/ 26/ 98

    44 Type Certification Procedures for 10/ 14/ 94 05/ 02/ 97 6/ 07/ 00

    Changed Products

    45 Passenger Facility Charges 06/ 03/ 94 04/ 16/ 96 04/ 10/ 00

    46 Revisions to Flight Data Recorder Rules 03/ 08/ 95 07/ 16/ 96 07/ 17/ 97

    47 Special Flight Rules in the Vicinity of 03/ 01/ 95 07/ 31/ 96 12/ 31/ 96
    Grand Canyon National Park

    48 Financial Responsibility Requirements for 01/ 11/ 96 07/ 25/ 96 08/ 26/
    98

    Licensed Launch Activities

    49 Commercial Space Transportation 01/ 11/ 96 03/ 19/ 97 04/ 21/ 99
    Licensing Regulations

    Duration Between Examinations for 12/ 16/ 94 02/ 09/ 00

    50

    First- and Second- Airman Medical Certifi cates

    51 False and Misleading Statements 08/ 22/ 94 not yet published Regarding
    Aircraft Parts

    52 Special Flight Rules in the Vicinity of the 02/ 26/ 96 05/ 15/ 96 01/ 08/
    97 Rocky Mountain National Park

    53 Placarding Certain Cargo or Baggage 06/ 10/ 96 07/ 21/ 97 Compartments

    54 Security Programs of Foreign Air Carriers 06/ 06/ 96 11/ 23/ 98 not yet
    published Fees for Providing Production 07/ 15/ 96 07/ 15/ 97 10/ 27/ 97

    55

    Certification- Related Services Outside the United States

    56 Civil Aviation Security User Fees 05/ 30/ 96 02/ 05/ 98 Noise Limitations
    for Aircraft Operations 12/ 24/ 96 12/ 31/ 96 not yet published

    57

    in the Vicinity of Grand Canyon National Park Prohibition of the
    Transportation of 12/ 11/ 96 08/ 27/ 98 not yet published

    58

    Devices Designed as Chemical Oxygen Generators as Cargo in Aircraft

    (Continued From Previous Page)

    Publication of a proposed Publication of the

    Initiation rule in the Federal

    final rule in the Terminated or

    Rule title date

    Register Federal Register withdrawn

    59 Protection of Voluntarily Submitted 12/ 11/ 96 07/ 26/ 99 not yet
    published

    Information

    60 Licensing and Safety Requirements of 01/ 13/ 97 not yet published

    Launch From Non- Federal Launch Site Establishment of Corridors in the Grand
    03/ 01/ 97 05/ 15/ 97 07/ 15/ 98

    61

    Canyon National Park Special Flight Rules Area Revised Standards for Cargo
    or Baggage 10/ 12/ 96 06/ 13/ 97 2/ 17/ 98

    62

    Compartments in Transport Category Airplanes

    63 Child Restraint Systems 04/ 07/ 97 not yet published

    64 Air Tour Operators in the State of Hawaii 06/ 09/ 94 08/ 28/ 00 09/ 29/
    00

    65 Terrain Awareness and Warning System 02/ 11/ 97 08/ 26/ 98 03/ 29/ 00

    66 High Density Airports; Allocation of Slots 09/ 26/ 97 01/ 12/ 99 10/ 01/
    99

    67 Security of Checked Baggage on Flights 07/ 08/ 97 04/ 19/ 99 not yet
    published Within the United States

    68 Transport Airplane Fuel Tank System 03/ 12/ 98 10/ 29/ 99 not yet
    published

    Design Review Commercial Air Tour Limitations in the

    10/ 04/ 98 07/ 09/ 99 04/ 04/ 00

    69

    Grand Canyon National Park Special Flight Rules Area Modification of the
    Dimensions of the 12/ 14/ 98 07/ 09/ 99 04/ 04/ 00

    70

    Grand Canyon National Park Special Flight Rules Area

    71 Certification of Screening Companies 05/ 20/ 98 01/ 05/ 00 not yet
    published Revisions to Digital Flight Data Recorder 05/ 10/ 99 11/ 18/ 99
    not yet published b

    72

    Regulations for Boeing 737 Airplanes and Part 125 Operations 73 Emergency
    Medical Equipment 10/ 05/ 98 05/ 24/ 00 not yet published

    74 Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance 05/ 28/ 98 not yet published

    Systems Improved Flammability Standards for

    12/ 04/ 98 09/ 25/ 00 not yet published

    75

    Thermal/ Acoustic Insulation Materials Used in Transport Category Airplanes

    76 Certification of Airports 02/ 28/ 97 07/ 05/ 00 not yet published a In
    commenting on the draft report, FAA officials noted that the proposed rule
    had been published on April 27, 2001.

    b In commenting on the draft report, FAA officials noted that the proposed
    rule had been published on April 4, 2001.

    Survey of Federal Aviation Administration

    Appendi x II

    Rulemaking Participants

    Introduction

    Please return the completed survey to: The U. S. General Accounting Office
    (GAO), a congressional agency that reviews federal programs, has been asked
    by

    Mark Lambert/ Chris Keisling Congress to review the Federal Aviation
    Administration?s

    U. S. General Accounting Office (FAA) rulemaking efforts and obtain
    information on the

    Room 6K17R results of the recent reengineering of the process. We are

    441 G St., NW focusing on significant rulemaking, for example, those rules

    Washington, D. C. 20548 with substantial impact on safety problems, those
    that are controversial, or those that have a potential economic impact on
    the aviation industry of $100 million or more. As part of

    Thank you in advance for your assistance. this effort, we are: (1)
    developing a data base of time required to process significant rules, (2)
    conducting a survey

    Definitions of Key Terms

    of rulemaking team members, (3) interviewing selected staff, and (4)
    conducting case studies.

    ?Teams? refer to your personal experience as a member of a cross- functional
    rulemaking team. We are sending this questionnaire to all FAA staff that
    were team members on significant rules listed in the Unified

    ?Office? refers to your organizational affiliation (e. g., AAM, Agenda of
    Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions from

    ACP, AFS, AGC, AIR, ARM, or APO). October 1999. This questionnaire asks your
    opinions of the rulemaking process based on your participation on a

    ?ARAC? refers to the Aviation Rulemaking rulemaking team( s) for a
    significant rule. We plan to

    Advisory Committee aggregate the survey responses and use the resulting
    information in our report on the status of FAA?s rulemaking

    ?NTSB? refers to the National Transportation process.

    Safety Board

    We recognize that there are great demands on your

    ?OST? refers to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation

    time and appreciate your efforts in helping us collect information on the
    rulemaking process.

    ?OMB? refers to the Office of Management and Budget

    BEFORE YOU CONTINUE:

    ?Team leader? refers to the individual representing Have you participated in
    formulating significant security or

    the Office of Primary Interest safety rules since October 1993 (beginning of
    fiscal year 1994)? (Check one)

    ?Project manager? refers to the individual representing the Office of
    Rulemaking

    1. [ ] Yes Please continue with this survey.

    2. [ ] No STOP! Please return this survey in the enclosed postage- paid
    envelope.

    Instructions

    In order to gather consistent information, we are providing definitions for
    key terms used in this questionnaire. If you have any questions regarding
    these terms, please contact Chris Keisling, GAO Senior Evaluator at 404-
    679- 1917 (email is keislingc. atlro@ gao. gov) or Mark Lambert, GAO Senior
    Evaluator at 404- 679- 1965 (email is lambertm. atlro@ gao. gov).