Department of Transportation December 8, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In May 2006, the U.S. Department of Transportation (the ``Department'') announced its National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on America's Transportation Network (the ``Congestion Initiative''), a bold and comprehensive national program to reduce congestion on the Nation's roads, rails, runways, and waterways. One major component of the Congestion Initiative is the Urban Partnership Agreement (``UPA''). The purpose of this Notice is to solicit proposals by metropolitan areas to enter into UPAs with the Department in order to demonstrate strategies with a combined track record of effectiveness in reducing traffic congestion. To support congestion-reducing strategies adopted by the Department's urban partners (``Urban Partners''), the Department expects to utilize discretionary funding available under the Department's Intelligent Transportation System Operational Testing to Mitigate Congestion Program (the ``ITS-OTMC Program''), its Value Pricing Pilot Program (the ``VPP Program''), and other discretionary grant, lending and credit support programs administered by the Department. In addition, to the maximum extent possible, the Department will support its Urban Partners with regulatory flexibility and dedicated expertise and personnel. This Notice is the first of three solicitations to be issued by the Department in connection with the Congestion Initiative. See below SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Coordination with Other Congestion Initiative Solicitations.'' The Department reserves the right to solicit, and is actively soliciting, by means other than this Notice, certain metropolitan areas that the Department has determined, on a preliminary basis, to be candidates for UPAs. Neither the procedures nor the criteria set forth in this Notice shall be binding on the Department.

The FAA proposes to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Boeing Model 747 airplanes. This proposed AD would require an inspection of the number (No.) 2 and No. 3 windows on the left and right sides of the airplane to determine their part numbers, and related investigative and corrective actions if necessary. This proposed AD results from loss of a No. 3 window in-flight. We are proposing this AD to detect and correct cracking in the fail-safe interlayer of certain No. 2 and No. 3 glass windows, which could result in loss of the window and consequent rapid loss of cabin pressure. Loss of the window could also result in crew communication difficulties or incapacitation of the crew.

The FAA proposes to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Model A318, A319, A320, and A321 airplanes. This proposed AD would require repetitive inspections of the operation of the main landing gear (MLG) door opening sequence to determine if a defective actuator is installed, and replacing any defective actuator with a new actuator. This proposed AD results from reports of slow operation of the MLG door opening/closing sequence due to a defective actuator. We are proposing this AD to detect and correct defective actuators of the MLG door, which could result in slow operation of the MLG door and consequent non-extension of the MLG during an emergency freefall operation.

Current law requires that U.S. citizens actually control each U.S. air carrier, that U.S. citizens own or control at least 75 percent of the shareholders' voting interest, and that the president and two- thirds of the directors and the managing officers must be U.S. citizens. The Department interprets this law in conducting initial and continuing fitness reviews of U.S. air carriers. We are withdrawing a proposal to modify by regulation the standards we apply in those cases where ``actual control'' by U.S. citizens is at issue. The proposal being withdrawn would have narrowed the scope of our inquiry in such cases to those core matters affecting compliance with U.S. requirements affecting safety, security, national defense and corporate governance. These rationalized standards for deciding whether U.S. citizens maintained ``actual control'' of a carrier would have applied only to proposed transactions involving investors whose countries have an open-skies air services agreement with the United States and offer reciprocal investment opportunities to U.S. citizens. Our interpretation of other aspects of the statutory citizenship requirement would have been unchanged. Although we are withdrawing the current proposal, we will continue to consider other ways to rationalize and simplify our domestic investment regime. The need for greater certainty and transparency in our requirements and administrative process has become very apparent. Indeed, public comment in this docket has only served to confirm the Department's growing concern that the current regime is so unduly complex and burdensome that it needlessly inhibits the movement of capital that otherwise would flow into the U.S. airline industry and thus interferes with the legitimate needs of U.S. carriers to attract strategic investors from overseas markets. The Department notes that most of the American economy has progressed well beyond the antiquated notions that continue to apply to the airline industry because of our administrative interpretations of the current statute. In a modern, global industry such as aviation, we believe that the United States should not shut its doors to foreign investment by perpetuating archaic and time-consuming administrative practices that serve neither a statutory purpose nor an identifiable policy interest of the United States. The Department had also proposed amendments to 14 CFR Part 204, the rules governing the data used in fitness determinations, and invited comment on the procedures used in fitness cases. The Department will publish a separate decision on those matters.