After a protracted gestation period, the Senate unanimously passed its FAA reauthorization bill late yesterday, sending it to a conference committee that will reconcile differences with the House version approved last May.
General aviation groups cheered the measure, which contains no user fees for GA but modestly raises the federal excise taxes on jet-A and aviation gas that GA pilots pay into the aviation trust fund.

The “FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act” establishes clear deadlines for adopting existing NextGen navigation and surveillance technology and accelerates planned timelines for integrating ADS-B into the National Airspace System (NAS). The bill requires the development of RNP and Rnav procedures at the 35 busiest airports by 2014 and for the entire NAS by 2018.

As a result of the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 last year near Buffalo, N.Y., S.1451 contains provisions for more stringent training for airline pilots, increasing the right-seat minimum flight hours from 250 to 800. It also mandates all carriers adopt Aviation Safety Action programs, Flight Operational Quality Assurance programs and Line Operations Safety Audit programs.

The House and Senate reauthorization bills now go to a conference committee, but it could take a while to iron out differences because there are major discrepancies between the two bills.


The DeMint bill was NOT included in the Reauthorization bill.