Opinion ID: 423897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: scope of the faa's jurisdiction

Text: 7 In evaluating the FAA's statutory position, we acknowledge the respect traditionally given an agency's interpretation of the statute it is called upon to enforce. See, e.g., FEC v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Comm., 454 U.S. 27, 39, 102 S.Ct. 38, 46, 70 L.Ed.2d 23 (1981). But we also are mindful that the thoroughness, validity, and consistency of any agency's reasoning are factors that bear upon the amount of deference to be given an agency's ruling. Id. at 37, 102 S.Ct. at 45. In the present case, the reasonableness of the FAA's interpretation is undermined on all three counts. 8 To begin, there is virtually no support for the FAA's contention that its present first-aid kit requirement merely reflects a longstanding administrative policy, self-consciously taken at the outer limits of FAA's authority, to require medical equipment designed only for health problems induced or caused by flight but not for those which merely occur in flight. See Brief of Respondents at 12, 17. Developed in the 1940's, the first-aid kit rule did not originally put any limits on the contents of the kits; the kits were merely required to be proper, 6 Fed.Reg. 3,826 (1941), adequate, 10 Fed.Reg. 8,529 (1945), or suitable and sufficient, 14 Fed.Reg. 4,307 (1949). Even after the agency began specifying the kits' contents, it stated only that they should contain at least the items listed herein, and nowhere indicated an induced or caused by flight distinction. See 14 Fed.Reg. 7,034 (1949) (emphasis added); 17 Fed.Reg. 2,748 (1952) (same). Although the agency's 1964 rulemaking focused particularly on injuries likely to occur in flight or in minor accidents, see 29 Fed.Reg. 19,206 (1964), there were no indications that the agency believed itself to be without authority to focus on more general, inflight medical emergencies in the future. This was made evident in 1973 when the FAA revised its first-aid kit rule in light of an agency study of turbulence accidents (which certainly produced flight-caused injuries). In response to comments suggesting the broader possibilities of first-aid training for airline crews and the maintenance of medical equipment at airports to evacuate passengers requiring hospitalization (both of which would be of value in all medical emergencies, not only in those caused by flight), the FAA stated, these comments, although outside the scope of the notice concerning this amendment, may be considered in future FAA regulatory action. 38 Fed.Reg. 35,233 (1973) (emphasis added). A similar statement appears in the FAA's 1975 rulemaking: Comments were also received which recommended the adoption of [230 U.S.App.D.C. 168] requirements for first-aid equipment and crew-member training that are considered outside of the scope of the Notice concerning this amendment. However, those comments may be considered in future FAA regulatory action. 40 Fed.Reg. 1,039 (1975) (emphasis added). In short, we cannot agree with the FAA that the history of its first-aid kit rule has taken place at the outer limits of the agency's regulatory authority. 9 Moreover, in light of the broad statutory mandate under which the FAA operates, the agency's present attempt to limit artificially its regulatory authority is unreasonable. The FAA derives its authority to regulate safety from those provisions of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 (the 1958 Act), 49 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1542 (1976 & Supp. V 1981), which carry forward several of the safety provisions of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 (the 1938 Act), Act of June 23, 1938, ch. 601, 52 Stat. 973 (repealed by 1958 Act). In particular, section 601(a) of the 1958 Act empowers the Administrator: 10 to promote safety of flight in civil aircraft in air commerce by prescribing and revising from time to time: 11 .... 12 (6) such reasonable rules or regulations or minimum standards governing other practices, methods, and procedure, as the Administrator may find necessary to provide adequately for national security and safety in air commerce. 13 49 U.S.C. § 1421(a)(6) (emphasis added). Section 604 of the 1958 Act authorizes the FAA to issue air carrier operating certificates which shall prescribe such terms, conditions and limitations as are reasonably necessary to assure safety in air transportation. 49 U.S.C. § 1424(b) (emphasis added). And section 313(a) provides the Administrator with the power to issue rules consistent with the provisions of this Act, as he shall deem necessary to carry out the [Act's] provisions .... 49 U.S.C. § 1354(a). In its denial of petitioners' request for rulemaking, the FAA did not discuss (or even cite) these provisions. See Denial of Petition, JA 69. On appeal, the agency's counsel acknowledges that the literal terms of the statute are broad but nevertheless urges us to read into them the FAA's narrowing induced by flight distinction. See Brief of Respondent at 10-12. We decline to do so. Although we do not interpret the 1958 Act's safety provisions to constitute a general welfare clause, giving the FAA authority over virtually all aspects of life on board commercial aircraft, the proper scope to be given these provisions must comport with the broad language in which Congress couched its delegation of authority. Cf. United Mine Workers of America v. Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, 671 F.2d 615, 626 (D.C.Cir.1982) (rejecting narrow agency interpretation in light of broad safety purposes of 1977 Mine Act). Accordingly, we cannot reconcile the FAA's highly artificial induced by flight distinction with the evident intent of Congress to give the FAA plenary authority to [m]ake and enforce safety regulations governing the design and operation of civil aircraft in order to insure the maximum possible safety. See H.R.Rep. No. 2360, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. 2, 7 (1958) (emphasis added), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1958, p. 3741. The 1938 and 1958 Acts have been construed to embody a comprehensive scheme for the regulation of the safety aspect of aviation, Pike v. CAB, 303 F.2d 353, 355 (8th Cir.1962) (Blackmun, J.), and we cannot sanction as reasonable, in light of this intended comprehensiveness, an interpretation of the Act which allows the FAA to require bandages and scissors but which withholds from the FAA the authority to require stethoscopes. The Act, by its terms, empowers the Administrator to promulgate regulations reasonably related to safety in flight, see 49 U.S.C. § 1421(a)(6), and we have no doubt that the rule supported by petitioners--regardless of its wisdom as a matter of policy--would at least satisfy this minimum nexus. Not only are inflight medical emergencies of immediate concern to the personal safety of the stricken passengers, see, e.g., Comments of Petitioners, JA 36 (referring to over 100 incidents of serious inflight illnesses), but they may also be of concern [230 U.S.App.D.C. 169] to the safety of others. The record contains numerous examples of airline pilots reacting to inflight medical emergencies by making unscheduled landings, see, e.g., JA 42, 47, 51, 60, 63, as well as indications that the carriage of emergency medical equipment could reduce the necessity of making at least some of these landings, see, e.g., JA 47 (stethoscope on board probably could have enabled passenger-physician to rule out necessity of making emergency landing in Salina, Kansas). The record also indicates that such equipment could be of benefit to stricken pilots or other members of the airline crew. See JA 43. On these bases alone, the FAA's consideration of a rule mandating emergency medical equipment would fit within its authority to regulate safety within the meaning of the 1958 Act. 14 Indeed, we find the FAA's contrary view somewhat difficult to square with its position, and with that of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), in a related CAB rulemaking in 1980. In that proceeding, a virtually identical petition for rulemaking was filed with the CAB by several of the same parties who are petitioners in the present case. Although the CAB denied the petition, it did so because it believed the rulemaking should have been properly conducted by the FAA, which has primary responsibility for safety and health matters.... [And which has] superior expertise and authority to evaluate the adequacy of emergency medical kits. See Order Denying Petition for Rulemaking 2, reprinted in Reply Brief of Petitioners, Appendix A. We find it at least noteworthy that the CAB, which administered the first-aid kit rule prior to the 1958 Act, apparently did not subscribe to the artificial limitations on the FAA's statutory authority now advanced by the FAA itself. We also find it noteworthy that the FAA, which now claims that its lack of statutory authority follows in part from its lack of medical expertise, see Brief of Respondents at 14, offered in 1980 to aid the CAB's consideration of the identical issue with technical assistance from the FAA's Office of Aviation Medicine and Federal Air Surgeon staff, see Letter from FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond to CAB Chairman Marvin Cohen (March 3, 1980), reprinted in Reply Brief of Petitioners, Appendix B. But what we find most unreasonable about the present position of the FAA is that it threatens to leave the merits of the petitioners' request for rulemaking, literally and figuratively, up in the air. Should the FAA's interpretation of the statute be affirmed, petitioners promise to return to the CAB and refile their petition for rulemaking, conjuring up notions of two inflight medical kits: a flight-induced kit administered by the FAA and an emergency medical kit administered by the CAB. This is neither good medicine nor good government nor, above all, reasonable statutory interpretation. One of the purposes of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 was to eliminate just this kind of bureaucratic overlap and fractured administration. See Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. CAB, 543 F.2d 247, 261 (D.C.Cir.1976) (1958 Act made FAA primary federal agency regarding aviation safety). Accordingly, the impractical results of the FAA's statutory interpretation afford a final reason to reject it as unreasonable.