GOP on the Brink of Weakening Flight Safety Rules

[Judi Lynn]

GOP on the Brink of Weakening Flight Safety Rules
George Zornick George Zornick – Wed May 4, 10:31 am ET

The Nation -- In March, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) introduced a brief amendment to an aviation bill that will fund the Federal Aviation Administration for the next several years. Shuster’s seemingly innocuous amendment called on the FAA to draw up separate flight safety rules for commercial, charter, and cargo airlines, and imposed several procedures the agency must follow in crafting those rules.

The measure, which narrowly passed the Republican House of Representatives on April 1 and might soon be made part of the final aviation legislation, is actually far from harmless. If enacted it will slow down or stop some common-sense flight safety rules from being created through the various stringent procedures it places on the regulatory process. While it’s not as dramatic as recent GOP attempts to gut environmental protection or regulation of Wall Street, Shuster’s amendment is a telling example of how far the current GOP will go to protect industry interests.

The new flight safety rules that Shuster is trying to slow down would create tougher guidelines for how pilots are trained, and how much rest they must get before flying. The rules are a product of a lengthy campaign from families of a recent crash in Buffalo, NY that proved the dangers of lax federal regulation in airline safety.

On February 12, 2009, Continental Flight 3407, operated by the smaller carrier Colgan Air, crashed into a suburb of Buffalo. The young co-pilot had taken an overnight, cross-country flight the day before the crash and slept briefly in an airport lounge in Newark, NJ before piloting Flight 3407.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20110504/cm_thenation/160389