FAA Set for Small Funding Boost in Federal Spending Package

The U.S. House of Representatives has begun consideration of a government-wide funding bill that would give a $127 million boost to the Federal Aviation Administration’s budget for the current fiscal year—$500 million more than the White House requested. The spending package, H.R.244,  is heading to the Senate for consideration after House action. It places particular emphasis on areas of interest to general aviation, including certification, advanced materials and alternative fuels research, and NextGen.

Lawmakers recently unveiled the $1 trillion spending bill for Fiscal Year 2017, carving out $16.4 billion for the FAA. The bill would bump the FAA’s operation spending to $10.026 billion, more than $30 million over the request, and cover aviation safety expenses for acceleration of funding of drones into the National Airspace System.

An additional $1.5 million is provided to enable the FAA to hire more specialists to support certification of new technologies and expand organizational delegation authorization (ODA). Congress specified that the additional funding is intended to provide the FAA necessary resources “to work with industry to achieve the goal of full utilization of ODA to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of product certification.” The spending package includes language directing the agency to review and remove ODA limitations on activities deemed to be of low or medium risk.

Further, the bill praises the FAA for efforts that should result in streamlined validation of type certificates, and directs the agency “to ensure that the efficiency of foreign validations is consistent” with bilateral agreements. Congress also directed the FAA to assist U.S. companies that experience significant delays.

Other measures include $159 million for the contract tower program and a prohibition on eliminating the contract weather observers program.

The bill provides $2.855 billion for the FAA’s facilities and equipment expenses, including $7 million more than requested to advance space-based ADS-B technology. The $176.5 million for research, engineering, and development efforts includes $2 million for research in composite materials and structures testing and development and $7 million for alternative fuels for general aviation. Congress established a $3.35 billion obligation limitation for airport funding.

Additionally, the bill returned some provisions that have been included in past spending bills, including a prohibition on altering the weight limitation at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and privacy protections surrounding the display of aircraft registration numbers on flight-tracking websites.

Industry welcomed the long-awaited agreement. National Air Transportation Association president Martin Hiller praised the bill’s recognition of “general aviation priorities, including full funding for the contract tower program, additional funding for alternative fuels research, and more than $1 billion to continue NextGen modernization.” He also pointed to other initiatives, such as the effort to accelerate certification, and a measure that would examine the effect of collegiate flight training on the future pilot workforce. “Continued work by congressional appropriators is an important part of making the FAA an effective safety partner with the general aviation community,” Hiller said.

Congress is considering the FY2017 budget, even though the government is already halfway through the fiscal year. Government agencies have been operating under a series of short-term extensions since the fiscal year began on October.