GAO

United States General Accounting Office

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

Page 1 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Contents

Letter 5

Executive Summary 6

Chapter 1 

Introduction

22

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

FAA Took Varying 

Times to Complete 

Steps of the 

Rulemaking Process, 

Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in 

One-Half or Less of 

Cases

39

FAA Initiated Most Rulemaking in Response to Mandates and Safety 

Recommendations Within 2 Years 39

Time FAA Took to Complete Steps in the Rulemaking Process 

Varied 43

Time FAA Took to Finalize Rules After the Comment Period Was 

Comparable to That of Four Other Agencies 45

FAA Met Legislative Requirements in Half or Less of Its Rulemaking 

Efforts 46

Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms 

Addressed 

Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems 

but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

50

FAA’s 1998 Efforts to Improve Rulemaking Addressed Long-standing 

Problems 50

Other Federal Agencies Have Undertaken Reforms to Address Similar 

Problems 54

Despite Reforms, FAA’s Rulemaking Times Did Not Improve 56
Contents

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Chapter 4

Incomplete 

Implementation of 

FAA's Reforms 

Impaired Efforts to 

Address Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems

63

Problems Related to Management Involvement Continued to Slow 

the Process 63

Problems in Process Administration Continued to Impair 

Rulemaking 73

Human Capital Management Initiatives for Rulemaking Activities 

Were Overlooked 77

Conclusions 79

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
Contents

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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
Contents

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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
Page 5 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548 Letr

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
Page 6 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
Executive Summary

Page 7 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
Executive Summary

Page 8 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
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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 1⁄2

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 1⁄2 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 11⁄2 months to more than 6 years. 

Nonetheless, since the Congress enacted legislation in October 1996 that 
Executive Summary

Page 10 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 
Executive Summary

Page 11 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
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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. 
Executive Summary

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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 

Process Were Completed in 

Varying Times That Often 

Missed Legislative 

Requirements 

Of the 76 significant rulemaking actions GAO reviewed, about 42 percent 

were initiated in response to a congressional mandate or recommendation 

by NTSB. While congressional mandates may require that FAA take 

rulemaking action, NTSB’s recommendations do not. However, FAA is 

required to formally respond to the recommendation to specify what action 

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 
Executive Summary

Page 14 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 1⁄2 years1

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. 
Executive Summary

Page 15 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Long-standing Rulemaking 

Problems but Did Not 

Reduce Rulemaking Times

The two new groups that FAA established to improve management 

involvement in the rulemaking process consisted of members from all FAA 

offices involved with current rulemaking efforts, as well as representatives 

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 
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Page 16 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
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Page 17 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Reforms Has Not Solved 

Long-standing Problems

FAA’s reforms have not successfully addressed many of the problems that 

have hindered the timeliness of rulemaking at the agency. Our survey of 

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. 
Executive Summary

Page 18 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Executive Action

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

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 
Executive Summary

Page 19 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 
Executive Summary

Page 20 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
Executive Summary

Page 21 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking
Page 22 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Chapter 1

 Introduction Chapte1r

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. 
Chapter 1

Introduction

Page 23 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
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Introduction

Page 24 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Federal Rulemaking 

Process Involves 

Common Steps and 

Documents 

Rulemaking involves three stages of agency activity. First, an agency 

identifies a need for rulemaking. Second, it initiates the rulemaking 

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

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

the comments received and drafting and publishing the final rule. Figure 5 

provides an overview of the process as it applies to FAA.
Chapter 1

Introduction

Page 25 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Figure 5: FAA’s Rulemaking Process for Significant Rules 

Source: Based on FAA’s Rulemaking Manual, Dec. 1998.
Chapter 1

Introduction

Page 26 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. §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. 
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Page 27 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 128665

 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. 
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Page 28 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 
Chapter 1

Introduction

Page 29 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 21st 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.
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Introduction

Page 30 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
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Page 31 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Table 1: Key Roles and Responsibilities of Participants in FAA’s Rulemaking Process

Source: FAA’s Rulemaking Manual, Dec. 30, 1998.

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 

Plans

The Office of Aviation Policy and Plans provides detailed estimates of the economic 

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 

Committee (ARAC)

ARAC is a formal advisory committee consisting of representatives from the aviation 

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. 
Chapter 1

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Page 32 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Prior Studies of 

Federal Rulemaking 

Have Found Similar 

and Persistent 

Problems

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

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 

development exceeds the pace of rulemaking. Many of the problems 

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

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. 

10Delay in the Regulatory Process, Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States 

Senate, July 1977. 

11The Department of Transportation’s Rulemaking Process (MH-2000-109 July 20, 2000).
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Page 33 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 

12Federal Aviation Administration Business Process Reengineering Technical Report,

Electronic Data Systems (May 16, 1997).
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Page 34 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Problems With Management 

Involvement, Process 

Administration, and Human 

Capital Impaired FAA’s 

Rulemaking

In terms of management involvement, FAA’s 1997 study of its rulemaking 

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

management involvement, and the willingness of management to delegate 

authority all caused delays. Inconsistent and changing priorities among 

FAA offices caused false starts, delays in the process, and wasted 

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.
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Page 35 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Concerns About the 

Efficiency of FAA’s 

Rulemaking Prompted 

Congressional Action and 

the Latest FAA Review

Responding to concerns about the efficiency of FAA’s rulemaking process 

and in particular the time required for departmental review by OST, the 

Congress enacted legislation in 1996 designed to speed FAA’s efforts to 

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 

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 

Methodology 

The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation, House Committee on 

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 

13Federal Aviation Administration Business Process Reengineering Technical Report

(May 1997).
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Page 36 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

14The 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. 

15Because 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.
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Introduction

Page 37 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

16We 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. 
Chapter 1

Introduction

Page 38 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
Page 39 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases Chapte2r

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 1⁄2

years1

 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 

Rulemaking in 

Response to Mandates 

and Safety 

Recommendations 

Within 2 Years

FAA initiated most rulemaking actions in response to safety 

recommendations from the NTSB and mandates from the Congress within 

2 years.2

 Of the 76 significant rulemaking actions we reviewed, 32 

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

congressional mandate or recommendation by the NTSB. While 

congressional mandates may require that FAA take rulemaking actions, 

NTSB’s recommendations do not. However, FAA is required to respond 

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.
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 40 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 41 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 42 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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

Source: GAO’s analysis of FAA information.
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 43 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Complete Steps in the 

Rulemaking Process 

Varied

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 1⁄2 years to 

proceed from the formal initiation of the rulemaking process to the 

publication of the final rule in the Federal Register. This time period ranged 

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.
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 44 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 45 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Finalize Rules After the 

Comment Period Was 

Comparable to That of 

Four Other Agencies

Although we did not compare the time frame of FAA’s entire rulemaking 

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 

to that of four other federal agencies.4

 We selected four regulatory 

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 

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).
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 46 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Requirements in Half 

or Less of Its 

Rulemaking Efforts

The Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996 established a 16-month 

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 

deadline in 7 of 18 cases6

 by either publishing a final rule in the Federal 

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. 
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 47 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 48 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 
Chapter 2

FAA Took Varying Times to Complete Steps of 

the Rulemaking Process, Meeting Legislative 

Requirements in One-Half or Less of Cases

Page 49 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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

Source: GAO’s analysis of FAA information.
Page 50 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times Chapte3r

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 

Improve Rulemaking 

Addressed Longstanding Problems 

FAA began implementing reform initiatives in January 1998 to improve its 

rulemaking 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.

FAA Took Steps to Improve 

Management Involvement in 

Process

FAA developed initiatives aimed at improving management’s ability to 

coordinate and set priorities, resolve policy questions, and streamline the 

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: 
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 51 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

“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

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). 

Title Membership Duties

Steering committee FAA assistant and associate administrators with 

current rulemaking responsibilities

Chief counsel

A representative from OST 

• Determine priorities 

• Resolve disputes that cannot be settled at the 

management council level

Management council Director-level managers at FAA headquarters with 

current rulemaking responsibilities

A representative from OST 

• Ensure that rulemaking projects align with agency 

priorities 

• 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
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 52 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Table 3: FAA’s System for Prioritizing Rulemaking Projects 

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 

Administer the Process 

More Efficiently

To address problems in administering the rulemaking process, FAA 

implemented a series of reforms. These reforms were primarily designed to 

clarify the extent and limitations of each team member’s roles and 

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
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 53 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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. 
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 54 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

FAA Considered but Did Not 

Fully Implement 

Recommendations to 

Improve Human Capital 

Management

To promote accountability in the rulemaking process, the working team for 

the 1997 study recommended a number of human capital management 

strategies to improve the training, evaluation, and rewarding of rulemaking 

staff. The team recommended that FAA provide orientation training on the 

new rulemaking process to all staff involved in rulemaking efforts. It also 

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 

Have Undertaken 

Reforms to Address 

Similar Problems

During our investigation, we also discussed rulemaking reform with 

rulemaking officials from several other federal regulatory agencies whose 

rules involved public safety to identify what steps they had taken to 

improve their rulemaking processes. Although an evaluation of the 

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 
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 55 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 56 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Rulemaking Times Did 

Not Improve

The median time FAA took to proceed from formal initiation of rulemaking 

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 

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.
Chapter 3

FAA’s Reforms Addressed Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems but Did Not Reduce 

Rulemaking Times

Page 57 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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 

Not Reduce the Time Taken 

for Departmental Review 

and Approval of FAA’s 

Significant Rules 

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

reformed its rulemaking process in 1998. Overall, for both proposed and 

final rules, the median time OST took to approve rules (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, an increase of about 5 

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 
Chapter 3

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Rulemaking Times

Page 58 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.
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The Number of Significant 

Rules Published Declined as 

Proposed and Final Rules 

Remained in the Process 

Longer 

Since 1998, FAA has published fewer rules. As shown in figure 14, FAA 

finalized 18 significant final rules in the 3-year period prior to implementing 

its reform. In the 3-year period following the reform, FAA finalized only 11 

significant final rules. FAA rulemaking officials attributed the change in 

productivity of significant rules to the agency’s efforts to classify more 

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.
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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 

Frames Often Not Met

As part of its rulemaking reform in January 1998, FAA established its own 

time frames for developing and publishing proposed and final rules, as 

shown in figure 17. 
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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.
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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.
Page 63 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's Reforms 

Impaired Efforts to Address Long-standing 

Rulemaking Problems Chapte4r

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 

Management 

Involvement Continued 

to Slow the Process 

Problems related to three general areas of management involvement 

continued to slow the process. Multiple, shifting priorities made it difficult 

to allocate resources effectively and often disrupted the timing of the 

rulemaking process. Too often, policy issues were not resolved in a timely 

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

Numerous and Shifting 

Priorities Created Staffing 

Resources Problems That 

Slowed the Rulemaking 

Process

An excessive number of rulemaking priorities continued to impair the 

efficiency of the process. The number of projects on FAA's top priority list 

grew from 35 in February 1998, when FAA established the priority list after 

implementing its reforms, to 46 in April 2000. At that time, the Associate 

Administrator for Regulation and Certification said it was critical to 

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

Source: GAO’s analysis of FAA information.
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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 
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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.
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Management Difficulties in 

Resolving Complex Policy 

Issues Continued to Slow 

the Rulemaking Process 

On some rulemaking projects, the time FAA management took to resolve 

complex policy issues added years to the overall time taken to complete 

the rule. Based on findings that sequential review and decisionmaking by 

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. 
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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.
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Multiple Levels of 

Management Review 

Continued to Slow the 

Process 

Delays in the process caused by multiple layers of review within the agency 

continued despite FAA's reform efforts because the reduction in layers of 

review and the level of employee empowerment envisioned in FAA's 

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 
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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 
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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.
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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 

Administration 

Continued to Impair 

Rulemaking

Problems in three central areas related to the administration of the 

rulemaking process continued to contribute to delays. Significant 

confusion persisted regarding the roles and responsibilities of rulemaking 

team members. Information systems lacked complete, accurate, or current 

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 

Regarding the Roles and 

Responsibilities of 

Participants 

Although FAA attempted to address confusion over roles and 

responsibilities in its reforms, our survey indicated that only about 40 

percent of the individuals we surveyed agreed that the “roles and 

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 
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office's involvement in policy issues, as well as assessments of the quality 

of analyses conducted to support rules. 

Information Systems 

Consistently Track Only “A”

List Rules and Are Not 

Consistently Used 

In September 2000, we reported on the importance of information 

technology resources for federal agencies to gather and share information,2

and FAA officials cited the development of a rulemaking management 

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). 
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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 

Continuous Improvement 

Efforts Was Incomplete 

Despite explicit efforts in the rulemaking reform to establish systems to 

evaluate the new process and establish quality standards and guidance, 

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 
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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).
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Human Capital 

Management Initiatives 

for Rulemaking 

Activities Were 

Overlooked 

Human capital management initiatives focusing on training, performance 

measurement and evaluation, and rewards for rulemaking efficiency and 

quality work were generally not implemented at the time of our review. 

According to the National Performance Review, which made 

recommendations regarding federal agencies' rulemaking processes in 

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 

Training Was Limited to the 

Office of Rulemaking Staff 

Although FAA's reform plan called for orientation training on the new 

rulemaking process and ongoing training in a wide range of areas for all 

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).
Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's 

Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Longstanding Rulemaking Problems

Page 78 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

segment devoted to training to support the rulemaking process, as 

envisioned by the reform. 

Lack of Rulemaking 

Performance Measurement, 

Evaluation, and Rewards 

Hinders Effectiveness of 

Reforms 

As we reported in January 2000,5 a key element of human capital 

management is the use of performance management systems, including pay 

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

rulemaking, FAA has not consistently done so for rulemaking staff and 

management. Although FAA's reform effort included recommendations to 

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).
Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's 

Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Longstanding Rulemaking Problems

Page 79 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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, 
Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's 

Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Longstanding Rulemaking Problems

Page 80 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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;
Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's 

Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Longstanding Rulemaking Problems

Page 81 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

• 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.
Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's 

Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Longstanding Rulemaking Problems

Page 82 GAO-01-821 Aviation 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.
Chapter 4

Incomplete Implementation of FAA's 

Reforms Impaired Efforts to Address Longstanding Rulemaking Problems

Page 83 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking
Page 84 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Appendix I

Status of 76 Significant Rules in FAA’s Apendxies

Workload FY 1995 - FY 2000 ApendxiI

Rule title 

Initiation

date

Publication of a proposed

rule in the Federal

Register

Publication of the

final rule in the

Federal Register

Terminated or

withdrawn

1 Revision of Airman Medical Standards 

and Certification Procedures

07/09/82 10/21/94 03/19/96

2

Aircraft Flight Simulator Use in Pilot 

Training, Testing, and Checking and at 

Training Centers

01/07/83 08/11/92 07/02/96

3

Improved Standards for Determining 

Rejected Takeoff and Landing Performance

10/07/83 11/30/87 02/18/98

4 Passenger-Carrying and Cargo Air

Operations for Compensation or Hire

05/18/84 10/12/88 12/20/95

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

7

Type and Number of Passenger 

Emergency Exits Required in Transport 

Category Airplanes

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

8 Improved Survival Equipment for 

Inadvertent Water Landings

05/01/85 06/30/88 not yet published

9 Air Carrier and Commercial Operator 

Training Programs

08/01/88 12/13/94 12/20/95

10 Retrofit of Improved Seats in Air Carrier 

Transport Category Airplanes

01/26/88 05/17/88 not yet published

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

12 Sole Radio Navigation System; Minimum 

Standards for Certification

05/12/89 not yet published

13

Airworthiness Standards; Occupant

Protection Standards for Commuter 

Category Airplanes

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

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

15 Fatigue Test Requirements for Aging 

Aircraft

12/01/89 07/07/95

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 

Requirements

10/11/90 03/23/93 04/27/95

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

Status of 76 Significant Rules in FAA’s 

Workload FY 1995 - FY 2000

Page 85 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

21

Cost of Services and Transfer of Fees to 

Part 187 from Parts #47, #49, #61, #63, 

#65, and #143

06/07/90 not yet published

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

24

Airworthiness Standards: Systems and 

Equipment Rules based on European 

Joint Aviation Requirements

03/01/94 07/22/94 02/09/96

25

Airworthiness Standards: Powerplant 

Rules based on European Joint Aviation 

Requirements 

03/01/94 06/30/94 02/09/96

26

Airworthiness Standards: Flight Rules 

Based on European Joint Aviation Requirements

07/23/91 07/25/94 02/09/96

27 Airport Noise Compatibility Planning 08/14/90 not yet published

28

Anti-Drug and Alcohol Misuse Prevention 

Programs for Employees of Foreign Air 

Carriers Engaged in Specified Aviation 

Activities

10/29/91 12/05/92 01/13/00

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 

Program

01/11/93 07/05/00 not yet published

32 National Air Tour Safety Standards 10/11/90 not yet published

33

Revision of Emergency Evacuation 

Demonstration Procedures to Improve 

Participant Safety

11/18/93 07/18/95 not yet published

34 Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance 

System (TCAS 1)

04/22/93 03/31/94 12/29/94

35

Operations of Jet Aircraft in Commuter 

Slots at LaGuardia Airport and John F. 

Kennedy International Airport 

11/10/92 02/14/96

36 Rules of Practice for Federally-Assisted 

Airport Proceedings

04/06/94 06/09/94 10/16/96

37 Overflights of Units of the National Park 

System

02/17/94 not yet publisheda

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)

Rule title 

Initiation

date

Publication of a proposed

rule in the Federal

Register

Publication of the

final rule in the

Federal Register

Terminated or

withdrawn
Appendix I

Status of 76 Significant Rules in FAA’s 

Workload FY 1995 - FY 2000

Page 86 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

40

Commuter Operations and General 

Certification and Operations Requirements

12/06/94 03/29/95 12/20/95

41

Flight Crewmember Duty Period 

Limitations, Flight Time Limitations and 

Rest Requirements

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

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 

Changed Products

10/14/94 05/02/97 6/07/00

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 

Grand Canyon National Park

03/01/95 07/31/96 12/31/96

48 Financial Responsibility Requirements for 

Licensed Launch Activities

01/11/96 07/25/96 08/26/98

49 Commercial Space Transportation 

Licensing Regulations 

01/11/96 03/19/97 04/21/99

50

Duration Between Examinations for 

First- and Second-Airman Medical Certificates

12/16/94 02/09/00

51 False and Misleading Statements 

Regarding Aircraft Parts

08/22/94 not yet published

52 Special Flight Rules in the Vicinity of the 

Rocky Mountain National Park

02/26/96 05/15/96 01/08/97

53 Placarding Certain Cargo or Baggage 

Compartments

06/10/96 07/21/97

54 Security Programs of Foreign Air Carriers 06/06/96 11/23/98 not yet published

55

Fees for Providing Production 

Certification-Related Services Outside 

the United States

07/15/96 07/15/97 10/27/97

56 Civil Aviation Security User Fees 05/30/96 02/05/98

57

Noise Limitations for Aircraft Operations 

in the Vicinity of Grand Canyon National 

Park

12/24/96 12/31/96 not yet published

58

Prohibition of the Transportation of 

Devices Designed as Chemical Oxygen 

Generators as Cargo in Aircraft

12/11/96 08/27/98 not yet published

(Continued From Previous Page)

Rule title 

Initiation

date

Publication of a proposed

rule in the Federal

Register

Publication of the

final rule in the

Federal Register

Terminated or

withdrawn
Appendix I

Status of 76 Significant Rules in FAA’s 

Workload FY 1995 - FY 2000

Page 87 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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.

59 Protection of Voluntarily Submitted 

Information

12/11/96 07/26/99 not yet published

60 Licensing and Safety Requirements of 

Launch From Non-Federal Launch Site

01/13/97 not yet published

61

Establishment of Corridors in the Grand 

Canyon National Park Special Flight 

Rules Area

03/01/97 05/15/97 07/15/98

62

Revised Standards for Cargo or Baggage 

Compartments in Transport Category 

Airplanes

10/12/96 06/13/97 2/17/98

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 

Within the United States

07/08/97 04/19/99 not yet published

68 Transport Airplane Fuel Tank System

Design Review

03/12/98 10/29/99 not yet published

69

Commercial Air Tour Limitations in the 

Grand Canyon National Park Special 

Flight Rules Area

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

70

Modification of the Dimensions of the 

Grand Canyon National Park Special 

Flight Rules Area

12/14/98 07/09/99 04/04/00

71 Certification of Screening Companies 05/20/98 01/05/00 not yet published

72

Revisions to Digital Flight Data Recorder 

Regulations for Boeing 737 Airplanes and 

Part 125 Operations 

05/10/99 11/18/99 not yet publishedb

73 Emergency Medical Equipment 10/05/98 05/24/00 not yet published

74 Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance

Systems 

05/28/98 not yet published

75

Improved Flammability Standards for 

Thermal/Acoustic Insulation Materials 

Used in Transport Category Airplanes

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

76 Certification of Airports 02/28/97 07/05/00 not yet published

(Continued From Previous Page)

Rule title 

Initiation

date

Publication of a proposed

rule in the Federal

Register

Publication of the

final rule in the

Federal Register

Terminated or

withdrawn
Page 88 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants ApendxiI

 	




Introduction

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), a congressional

agency that reviews federal programs, has been asked by

Congress to review the Federal Aviation Administration’s

(FAA) rulemaking efforts and obtain information on the

results of the recent reengineering of the process. We are

focusing on significant rulemaking, for example, those rules

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

this effort, we are: (1) developing a data base of time

required to process significant rules, (2) conducting a survey

of rulemaking team members, (3) interviewing selected staff,

and (4) conducting case studies.

We are sending this questionnaire to all FAA staff that were

team members on significant rules listed in the Unified

Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions from

October 1999. This questionnaire asks your opinions of the

rulemaking process based on your participation on a

rulemaking team(s) for a significant rule. We plan to

aggregate the survey responses and use the resulting

information in our report on the status of FAA’s rulemaking

process.

We recognize that there are great demands on your

time and appreciate your efforts in helping us collect

information on the rulemaking process.

BEFORE YOU CONTINUE:

Have you participated in formulating significant security or

safety rules since October 1993 (beginning of fiscal year

1994)? (Check one)

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).

Please return the completed survey to:

Mark Lambert/Chris Keisling

U.S. General Accounting Office

Room 6K17R

441 G St., NW

Washington, D.C. 20548

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Definitions of Key Terms

“Teams” refer to your personal experience as a member of a

cross-functional rulemaking team.

“Office” refers to your organizational affiliation (e.g., AAM,

ACP, AFS, AGC, AIR, ARM, or APO).

“ARAC” refers to the Aviation Rulemaking

 Advisory Committee

“NTSB” refers to the National Transportation

 Safety Board

“OST” refers to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation

“OMB” refers to the Office of Management

 and Budget

“Team leader” refers to the individual representing

 the Office of Primary Interest

“Project manager” refers to the individual representing the

Office of Rulemaking
Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants

Page 89 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

	

	
	
		

		
	
	

















 







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Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants

Page 90 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants

Page 91 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

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Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants

Page 93 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking
















 







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Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants

Page 94 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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Appendix II

Survey of Federal Aviation Administration 

Rulemaking Participants

Page 95 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

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Page 96 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Appendix III

Status of FAA’s Rules Subject to 1996 

Reauthorization Act Requirement that Rules 

be Finalized Within 16 Months ApendxiI

Proposed rules

Close of comment

period for proposed

rule

Date for required final

action Date of final action

Days overdue/met

requirement

Noise Limitations for 

Aircraft Operations in the 

Vicinity of Grand Canyon 

National Park

03/31/97 07/24/98 not yet published 981

Establishment of 

Corridors in the Grand 

Canyon National Park 

Special Flight Rules Area

06/16/97 10/09/98 07/15/98 met requirement

Commercial Space 

Transportation Licensing 

Regulations

08/04/97 11/27/98 04/21/99 145

Fees for Providing 

Certification-Related 

Services Outside the U.S

08/14/97 12/07/98 10/27/97 met requirement

Type Certification 

Procedures for Changed 

Products

09/02/97 12/26/98 06/07/2000 529

Revised Standards for 

Cargo or Baggage 

Compartments in 

Transport Category 

Airplanes

09/11/97 01/04/99 2/17/98 met requirement

Airport Security 06/26/98 10/19/99 not yet published 529

Prohibition on the 

Transportation of Devices 

Designed as Chemical 

Oxygen Generators as 

Cargo in Aircraft

10/26/98 02/18/00 not yet published 407

Terrain Awareness and 

Warning System

11/24/98 03/18/00 03/29/00 11

High Density Airports; 

Allocation of Slots

02/11/99 06/05/00 10/01/99 met requirement

Security Programs of 

Foreign Air Carriers

05/24/99 09/15/00 not yet published 197

Security of Checked 

Baggage on Flights 

Within the United States

06/18/99 10/10/00 not yet published 172

Commercial Air Tour 

Limitations in the Grand 

Canyon National Park 

Special Flight Rules Area

09/07/99 12/30/00 04/04/00 met requirement
Appendix III

Status of FAA’s Rules Subject to 1996 

Reauthorization Act Requirement that Rules 

be Finalized Within 16 Months

Page 97 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Modification of the 

Airspace for Grand 

Canyon National Park

09/07/99 12/30/00 04/04/00 met requirement

Aircraft Operator Security 09/24/99 01/16/01 not yet published 74

Protection of Voluntarily 

Submitted Information

11/04/99 02/26/01 not yet published 33

Part 145 Review: Repair 

Stations

12/03/99 03/27/01 not yet published 4

Air Tour Operators in the 

State of Hawaii

09/22/00 01/15/02 09/29/00 met requirement

(Continued From Previous Page)

Proposed rules

Close of comment

period for proposed

rule

Date for required final

action Date of final action

Days overdue/met

requirement
Page 98 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Appendix IV

Status of Federal Aviation Administration’s 

Rules With Legislative Mandates (as of

March 31, 2001) ApendxiIV

Rule title Mandated action

Action(s) taken in 

response to mandate Status

Improved Survival Equipment for 

Inadvertent Water Landings

Initiate rulemaking 

by 6/30/88

Rulemaking initiated 

5/1/85; Proposed rule 

published 6/30/88 

This rulemaking project is currently a priority 

“A” project. FAA planned to issue a final rule 

in 2001.

Retrofit of Improved Seats in Air Carrier 

Transport Category Airplanes

Publish a 

proposed rule by 

4/28/88

Proposed rule published 

5/17/88

This rulemaking project is currently a priority 

“A” project. FAA planned to issue a final rule 

in 2001.

Drug Enforcement Assistance Publish a final rule 

by 9/18/89

Notice of proposed rule 

published 3/12/90

This rulemaking project is currently a priority 

"B" project and had no scheduled date for a 

final rule. 

Sole Radio Navigation System Minimum 

Standards for Certification

Publish a final rule 

by 9/30/89

Advanced notice of 

proposed rule published 

1/22/90

To be withdrawn 

Unescorted Access Privileges Publish a final rule 

by 4/24/92

Final rule published in 

10/3/95

Completed 

Aging Aircraft Safety Initiate rulemaking 

by 4/24/92

Rulemaking initiated 

10/29/91; 1st notice of 

proposed rulemaking 

published 10/5/93; 2nd

notice of proposed 

rulemaking published 

4/2/99 

This rulemaking project is currently a priority 

“A” project. FAA planned to issue a final rule 

in 2001.

Anti-Drug and Alcohol Misuse Prevention 

Programs for Employees of Foreign Air 

Carriers Engaged in Specified Aviation 

Activities

Publish a final rule 

by 10/28/92

Withdrawal notice 

published 1/13/00

Withdrawn 
Page 99 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Appendix V

Comments From the Department of 

Transportation ApendxiV

See comment 1.

See comment 2.

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in the 

report text appear at the end of 

this appendix.
Appendix V

Comments From the Department of 

Transportation

Page 100 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

See comment 3.

See comment 4.
Appendix V

Comments From the Department of 

Transportation

Page 101 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Transportation’s 

letter dated June 13, 2001.

GAO’s Comments 1. We agree that rulemaking can be a complex and time-consuming 

process, and we reflected this understanding at appropriate sections 

throughout the text of the report. We also agree that measuring and 

comparing the times required to complete steps in the process cannot 

capture the qualitative nature and extent of the challenges FAA faces in 

many of its rulemaking efforts. Yet quantitative measurements are 

necessary to evaluate the process as a whole and to identify process 

improvements. The time FAA took to complete steps of the process 

along with the number of rulemaking projects completed over selected 

time periods are among the few quantitative measures of the 

rulemaking process. We therefore continue to believe that they are 

valuable measures of the agency's performance and the results of its 

efforts to reform the process. 

2. Regarding the Department's comments that FAA's rulemaking process 

is sound and getting better, we believe it is important that the 

Department not focus on the observations cited without the entire 

context in which they were presented. For example, the Department's 

statement that GAO's analysis concluded that the timeliness of FAA's 

rulemaking process is comparable to other agencies in the Federal 

government is an overstatement of the facts presented. The report 

notes 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 we examined. However, we also stated that, 

because agencies vary in how they initiate and document their 

rulemaking processes, it was not within the scope of this report 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. Similarly, the Department's 

focus on our draft report’s finding that the median age of FAA's 

significant final rulemaking projects decreased by about 7 months 

between 1997 and 2000 does not reflect the fact that all other measures 

of the process, including the time to complete the entire process and 

steps within the process, showed, at best, no improvement. (Note: In 

the draft report provided to the Department for comment, we stated 

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 stated in the Department’s letter. However, in finalizing our 
Appendix V

Comments From the Department of 

Transportation

Page 102 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

calculations, we found that this measure showed an increase of 

approximately 5 months.) In fact, our analysis suggests that the 

productivity of the process decreased after FAA's reform. The fact that 

FAA met its own suggested time frames for completing the process less 

than half the time belies the Department's assertion that the process is 

sound. Finally, the Department noted that our analysis included 

rulemaking projects that predate FAA's reforms. As we noted in the 

report, we used 3-year periods before and after FAA's reform as a basis 

for our analysis of the impact of the reforms on processing times. 

3. We agree with the Department that rulemaking priorities must remain 

flexible. However, real improvement in the rulemaking process can be 

achieved only through strategic management of the agency's resources. 

Since the rulemaking process can take years, sudden shifts of priority 

and staffing resources often result in delays and reinforce a public 

perception that FAA's rulemaking is primarily reactive, focusing on 

responding to accidents and highly-publicized incidents, rather than 

proactive, focusing on the rules that will best increase aviation safety 

and security. 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.

4. Regarding the value of departmental review, we were unable to 

compare the time required to complete the process for significant rules 

that underwent review and approval by the Department to the time 

required for those significant rules that did not because the Department 

and FAA have not implemented legislation that eliminated 

departmental review for some of FAA's significant rules. Similarly, 

OMB officials responsible for reviewing FAA's significant rules said 

that they were unable to evaluate the impact or value of OST's review 

as they had not yet received significant rules that had not gone through 

OST's review process. The Department also stated that the report's 

analysis of the median time for OST's review was skewed by a few rules 

that involved complex issues that required extensive efforts to resolve 

satisfactorily. This is incorrect. As we noted in our analysis, we used 

medians rather than means. While the mean, or average, may give 

greater weight to extreme values, the median, or middle observation, 

identifies the midpoint at which half of the observations are more and 

half are less. Thus, the median analysis is not skewed by the magnitude 

of individual observations.
Page 103 GAO-01-821 Aviation Rulemaking

Appendix VI

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiVI

GAO Contacts Gerald L. Dillingham, PhD., (202) 512-2834

Acknowledgments In addition to the individual named above, Janet Barbee, Alice Feldesman, 

Bert Japikse, Mitch Karpman, Chris Keisling, Mark Lambert, Matthew 

Ullengren, Alwynne Wilbur, and Mario Zavala made key contributions to 

this report. 

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