An Update On The "World's Longest Regulatory Negotiation"

In Washington, they call it the "world's longest regulatory negotiation" -- five years of talks between the FAA and the EPA on regulating jet aircraft emissions. And can you guess how much progress has been made?

That's right, little if any.

Now, after state and local air quality officials walked out of the marathon talks over the summer, it appears regulating jet aircraft emissions will fall to the states -- exactly where industry officials didn't want it to go.

When the talks broke down, according to the Washington Post, the agreement on the table would have committed the airline industry to reducing NOx emissions from some 40,000 types of equipment made before 1999, ranging from fuel tugs and tugs to baggage carts and such. Newer models are already subject to stiffer regulations. The goal: reduce NOx emissions by 50-percent over the next five years. There wasn't even any mention about jet aircraft exhaust.

That won't happen now and the two groups of non-federal anti-pollution officials who walked out on the talks are furious. In a letter dated November 22nd, quoted by the Post, the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials told both the EPA and the FAA, "The final proposal offered this summer was inadequate in terms of scope and stringency and placed unacceptable constraints on state and local air agencies' abilities to protect the public from the adverse health impacts associated with aviation-related pollution." The local and state regulators said they were disappointed that "no progress was made concerning the primary objective of reducing aircraft emissions."

At the bottom of the controversy is a dispute over whether high-altitude emissions contribute to the formation of ozone gas. The two state/local organizations say yes, as do most European governments. But the ATA says emissions from aircraft account for just 0.4 percent of the NOx emissions in the US.

Airline executives, already pressed to the wall on finances, told the Post they were surprised to see the state and local representatives walk out of the talks.

But they also say, given the state of the commercial aviation economy, they're hard pressed to commit any funding to what they see as an environmental program aimed at reducing emissions the airlines don't think are that serious anyway.

"The airlines are sucking air. We don't have two dimes to rub together," Nancy Young, ATA's managing director of environmental programs, told the Post. "But our CEOs stood behind a proposal that would cost $1 billion. And it was controversial."

While executives whose airlines would have contributed to that fund might breathe a sigh of relief over the cancelled talks, there comes a warning from the Airports Council International that the battle is far from over. And, said ACI Vice Senior President Richard Marchi, state and local authorities will be able to exact their pound of flesh by holding up airport construction or expansion plans.

Of course, he told the Post, they could always sue individual airports and individual carriers. That, he indicated, would be one of aviation's worst nightmares.

FMI: www.cleanairworld.org, www.aci-na.org