The Experimental Aircraft Association is reporting that the Trump administration put a freeze on new federal regulations, ordering that no new regulations be published in the Federal Register — which serves as official notification of the nation’s regulations and policies from the executive branch of government.
As part of that order, all regulations that have been issued but have yet to take effect have had their effective date delayed by 60 days.
How does that affect the third-class medical reform rule announced by the FAA on Jan. 10?
EAA officials report their initial contact with the FAA brought no clear answer, as the agency was exploring whether the freeze would impact this and dozens of other pending regulations. That also includes the recently finalized Part 23 small aircraft certification regulations.
“As the third-class medical reform regulation is drawn directly from a law passed by Congress and signed by the president, its existence cannot be negated by Executive Order,” said Sean Elliott, EAA’s vice president of advocacy and safety. “Such a freeze is not unprecedented when a new administration and party enters the White House, and it is intended to allow time to review regulations issued under a previous administration. Often the freeze is lifted after a short period of review to allow the workings of government to continue. That could very well occur well before the May 1 effective date for the third-class medical regulation, but only time will tell.”
Elliott adds that in a worst-case scenario, the effective date for the regulation would move to July 1.
The law passed by Congress and signed by former President Barack Obama last July expressly stated that if the provisions of the law were not in place one year after the president’s signature, the law would automatically become effective. That means medical reform as passed by Congress will go into effect no later than July 15, 2017.
EAA officials said they will continue to follow the issue closely and assure pilots they are in contact with the FAA and congressional representatives to urge that all possible measures be taken to allow the rule to go into effect on schedule.
I’m very excited about the 3rd class medical reform! Let’s get it done! I hope it becomes law before July 15! Thanks to the EAA and AOPA and senators/Rep that supported the reform.
3rd Class medical reform is certainly a good idea, and immediately.
But FAA, and some of medical reform’s opponents on the Hill, and perhaps some in the medical lobby, together with AOPA, and EAA’s apparent criteria appeasement, to accommodate that pushback, have now complicated its actual implementation provisions far beyond anything actually needed for safety. So that right now, in the fine print, it unnecessarily complicates and hampers typical airman compliance, or even precludes much of the relief legitimately originally sought and intended by the original legislation (e.g., still unnecessarily requiring “one time issuances” when those medical decisions can competently, safely, and better be made by the airman’s reviewing Physician).
Whereas now, the new Administration has the ability, and now legitimacy, to reduce the regulatory burden to purely what’s needed for safety, and thus implement FAR 68 as originally intended, quickly, and WITHOUT needing any added AOPA medical course completion requirements at all (i.e., a airman self-study guide should be plenty good enough), or not needing any additional certificate from AOPA (i.e., a pilot logbook entry of the Doctor’s checklist completion should be all that’s needed). That’s instead what should be done. Anything more is pure FAA, medical lobby, and AOPA unnecessary self-serving bureaucracy, and poorly conceived congressional opponent meddling.
Yes, let’s get it done, and ASAP. But not at the price of making it excessively hard to do, or making it virtually useless, for an entire set of entirely safe airmen, who are otherwise depending on a rational implementation of FAR 68.
The Administration putting the brakes on this FAA version of 3rd Class medical reform may actually be a very good idea.
FAA has already screwed 3rd Class medical reform intended by Congress up royally, by making it vastly more complicated than needed, with little actual intended relief from excessive, unnecessary, and inappropriate medical criteria.
Further, AOPA and EAA have both been deeply injected into the process completely unnecessarily, via the unnecessary periodic “medical education course” and “certification”. Instead, the Administration should immediately direct FAA to cancel AC 68-1, and reissue it as an amended AC68-1A presenting the “Doctor’s Checklist”, AND a short “Logbook entry” for the pilot to make, stating the name of the Physician and the date of the relevant exam, along with a brief “Medical issues Self-Study Guide”, and the list of a “Website at FAA” for the airman to send ONLY the name of the airman and date that FAR 68 compliance was met. Anything else beyond this is over-specification of criteria, or pandering to AOPA or EAA, to help them with membership assurance. Or it is tossing a bone to Sen. Diane Feinstein, who reportedly had an interest in fouling up this entire 3rd class medical process, with forcing “Over Specification” of the needed medical requirements, and tracking.
Excellent points.
Hopefully the Trump directives will force the FAA to reconsider the public comments and write rules that serve the intended purpose of making the rules and redtape less of an expensive burden.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Mr. Macklin!
The sad part of all this is that if AFS-1(John Duncan) had an ounce of either backbone, or real aviation knowledge, he could do all this with a stroke of the pen, just like previous Director’s of Flight Standards have done. He has both the statutory authority as well as likely key congressional and Administration support. AOPA and EAA would not fight a simplification and acceleration. All it would likely take is one coordinating phone call with an adequate explanation, to either Elaine Chao, or Shirley Yabarra (transition team), and he’d likely get strong Administration backing to completely bypass the essentially lame ducks in AVS-1 and AOA-1. It would take less than 1 week to finalize the AC68-1A checklist, AND put together an adequate “Medical Self-Study Guide”. This isn’t rocket-science. We could then start operating under FAR 68 within 2 weeks, allowing for both issuance of AC68-1A, cancellation of AC68-1 (just like an immediate adopted relaxatory rule). The exams, pilot review of the study guide, and logbook self signoffs after the doctor’s visit, with emails of completion sent to an FAA electronic address, could be completed by NLT the end of March. This could allow FAR68 operations to be commenced and in full effect by NLT March 31st. Anything else, is pure Obama/Feinstein era (and perhaps AMA?) induced molasses laden bureaucracy.
The 60-day delay is 60 days from the date the memo was released – not 60 days from the reg’s original effective date. The memo was released in January, so the 60 days will end before the reg’s May 1 effective date. This means the reg will take effect on May 1. Right now, we’re waiting for two things: the FAA to release the final version of the medical form that doctors have to sign; and AOPA to post the online medical course that pilots have to take. Renters also will need their FBO’s insurance companies to OK rentals to pilots without 3rd Class medical, though some policies — maybe most — already do that by requiring only whatever medical certificate is “required.”
The Trump admin will go further than the Obama admin when it comes to lifting regulations that hurt business and in this case aviation. It would be good if they allowed GA to regain it’s momentum, but the trick is to also not allow guys in the air that can hurt themselves and others. In my opinion that is pretty much anyone with a heart attack risk or a black out risk. Everything else is noise.
The risk is much greater you and your family are going to be hurt or killed by some guy driving on the highway impaired for some reason or another. The risk is very small that some guy is going to risk his life and his families in the air if he knows he is at risk for the things you spoke about.
Poor argument. There is ZERO upside to allowing accidents into the air. We have a nuke arsenal to prepare for nuke war despite the fact the chances of a nuke war are infinitesimally small. This is not about probability it’s about preventable a KNOWN hazard.
Let us hope that the 3rd class medical can be done away with properly as originally presented and not the most useless version now being considered.
As Sean Elliott states this is not unprecedented and most likely will be lifted by May or July. This administration seems determined to let its citizens be responsible for their own actions and remove as many rules, laws and chains as possible.