Congress And NextGen
The original roots of NextGen are in a bill Congress passed in December of 2003, the “Vision 100 – A Century Of Aviation Reauthorization Act.” The goals of the broad-based bill were many, but the particular outcome of the bill that has directly led to the problems related to NextGen has to do with moving away from radar-based guidance systems to one instead directed by GPS positioning.
The original concept behind NextGen was to use GPS to permit aircraft to fly more direct routes across the country, thus reducing fuel, time, money, and carbon emissions. Using NextGen to more precisely guide traffic into airports also became a goal of NextGen when the airlines persuaded the FAA that this would save jet fuel and increase throughput of aircraft at busy airports, thus producing higher profits for the airlines.
But to achieve this, NextGen also had to start allowing planes to fly at elevations thousands of feet lower once they entered congested airspace. The practical upshot of this has been that communities that used to experience 10-15 flights a day overhead, started to experience upwards of 300 flights a day overhead, flying at far lower elevations than they used to. Communities across the country are being tortured with a never-ending stream of noise and air pollution. And yet, the FAA has said “no new or significant” impacts would result from NextGen.
Among the many promises of NextGen included the promise of decreased carbon emissions from more efficient plane routing. There are multiple problems with this promise, among them 1). Recent studies have shown that NextGen isn’t producing nearly the amount of fuel savings it promised, resulting in little reduction in carbon emissions and 2). The ultimate goal of NextGen is to put even more planes in U.S. skies – a goal that will result in a net emissions increase, not a reduction.
As it has become increasingly clear that NextGen has been a disaster for hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country, Congress has begun to step up on behalf of its constituents to question the FAA’s implementation of NextGen, and its deleterious impact on communities across America. Congress’ role in directing the FAA to provide relief will be critically important in the battles ahead, as to date it does not appear the FAA has much interest in even acknowledging that there is a problem.
Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus
The Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus is made up of 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives dedicated to helping their constituents receive some relief from the continuous air and noise pollution created by NextGen. Their website contains information around the history of NextGen, legislation around NextGen, information around the health risks of air and noise pollution, information about property rights issues, as well as more information about the legal rights of U.S. citizens in relation to air and noise pollution.
1. Letters Sent By Congress To The FAA
As citizen complaints have soared across the country in the wake of NextGen implementation, Members of Congress have begun to step-up their pressure on the FAA to start interacting with impacted communities to works towards a solution.
December 1, 2016
Letter From Chairman Of The Senate Committee On Commerce, Science And Transportation John Thune To FAA Head Michael Huerta Requesting Information On NextGen Problems, Including Lack of FAA Stakeholder Engagement
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/29ad1841-5f25-4233-9c43-ca25978fbd01
October 6, 2017
Letter From Congresswoman Karen Bass (California) To FAA Administrator Michael Huerta Outlining All The Problems FAA NextGen Has Caused In Her District And Requesting Relief From the FAA
September 19, 2018
Letter From U.S. Senators Feinstein, Harris, Cardin And Van Hollen To Chairman And Ranking Member Of The Senate Committee On Commerce, Science And Transportation John Thune And Bill Nelson Concerning Increased Air And Noise Pollution Due To NextGen
June 18, 2019
House Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure Letter To The Comptroller General Of The United States Asking The Government Accountability Office (GAO) To Study The FAA’s Consideration Of Aviation Noise Issues Throughout The Implementation Of NextGen
July 26, 2019
Letter From U.S. Senators Schumer And Gillibrand And Congresswoman Meng To FAA Acting Head Dan Elwell Concerning Meetings of the NextGen Advisory Committee (NAC) And The FAA’s Lack Of Timely And Geographically-Appropriate Notice To Interested Parties To Participate In NAC Meetings
https://meng.house.gov/sites/meng.house.gov/files/Letter%20to%20Elwell.pdf
August 7, 2019
Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus Letter To New FAA Head Stephen Dickson Requesting An In-Person Meeting To Discuss NextGen Problems
October 24, 2019
Letter From Congressman Donald S. Beyer, Jr. To FAA Head Stephen Dickson Concerning The FAA’s Possible Changes To DCA Departure Routes That Would Route Even More DCA Traffic Over Arlington, VA And Alexandria,VA, Communities That Are Already Reeling From NextGen Air And Noise Pollution
https://beyer.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_to_faa_re_p56_changes_10.24.19.pdf
October 31, 2019
Congressman Adam Smith Sends Letter To The Comptroller General Of the United States Gene Dodaro Requesting That The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Study On The FAA’s Measurement, Evaluation, And Mitigation Of Aircraft Noise In Communities Surrounding FAA NextGen “Metroplexes” Be Broadened to Incorporate Single Site Airports
https://b-townblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Smith_GAO.pdf
November 5, 2019
Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus Letter to New FAA Head Stephen Dickson Outlining The Many Problems Created By NextGen And Asking For An FAA Response (Note: This Letter Was A Follow-Up To An In-Person Meeting Between FAA Head Stephen Dickson And The Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus)
December 20, 2019
Letter To The FAA From Senator Chris Van Hollen, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Benjamin Cardin, Senator Edward Markey, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, Congressman Harley Rouda, Congressman Stephen Lynch, Congressman Raul Ruiz, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, Congressman Adam Smith, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, Congresswoman Karen Bass, Congressman Ro Khanna, Congressman Ted Lieu, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo And Congressman Thomas Suozzi Questioning The Inspector General’s Recent Report Showing That The FAA’s NextGen Program Is Not Producing Nearly The Benefits It Promised And That NextGen Is Resulting In The Suffering Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans Due To Air And Noise Pollution.
Bicameral letter to FAA re IG Report.pdf
February 14, 2020
Boston Federal Lawmakers Send Letter To CEO’s At Delta, Southwest And American Airlines Seeking Relief From NextGen
Boston Federal Lawmakers Looking for a Quieter Logan
July 27, 2020
Congressman Jamie Raskin (Maryland) Sends A Letter To FAA Administrator Dickson Opposing The FAA’s Proposed Changes To Relax The Noise Rules On Supersonic Travel. In His Letter Congressman Raskin Notes:
-“The proposed changes ignore many of the interests include in the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act.”
-“The proposed rule change would place an additional noise burden on a massive group ofmy constituents who live near a commercial airport. I represent more than 20,000 householdsthat are already severely affected by noise from subsonic airplanes complying with a morestringent noise standard than is now being proposed. The intention of the proposed rule is toallow supersonic airplanes to meet a noise certification that is louder than the current Stage 5noise certification standard for comparable subsonic aircraft. This means that new supersonicairplanes will be among the loudest aircraft type allowed to operate at commercial airports.”
-“Given all the years of effort that citizen groups across the United States have invested in working with the FAA to curtail harmful airplane noise, promulgation of a weaker noise standard will send a stark message to those communities that their efforts have been meaningless and their future peace and quiet a hopeless cause.”
Congressmember Jamie Raskin Letter re Noise Certification of Supersonic Airplanes, RIN No. 2120 AL29
August 17, 2020
Washington, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Writes A Letter To GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro Requesting He Add Reagan National Airport To Metroplex Noise Study
“It is my understanding that GAO selected Dulles International Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Airport to represent the Washington, D.C. metroplex. While I understand that these two airports face similar issues to DCA, I believe there are issues specific to DCA that need examining. In 2015, the FAA implemented a new northern departure route from DCA without local input, and did so again in 2019 due to Secret Service concerns.”
September 23, 2020
Members of Congress Including Karen Bass , Eleanor Holmes Norton, Stephen F. Lynch, Mike Quigley, Thomas R. Suozzi, Donald S. Beyer Jr., Ed Case, Judy Chu, Anna G. Eschoo, Brian Fitzpatrick, Ruben Gallego, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Ted W. Lieu, Alan Lowenthal, Joe Neguse, Jimmy Panetta, Scott H. Peters, Jamie Raskin, Kathleen M. Rice, Harley Rouda, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Adam B. Schiff, David Scott, Brad Sherman, Adam Smith, Jackie Speier, Maxine Waters And Frederica S. Wilson Write A Letter To FAA Administrator Steve Dickson Pointing Out All The Problems With The FAA’s Deeply-Flawed Noise Study, Including:
“When the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 was passed into law, Congress sought to address community airplane noise concerns by utilizing the scientific and research arms of the FAA to substantively evaluate alternative noise metrics with an eventual eye to having those metrics inform FAA decision-making. There is widespread consensus that the DNL metric remains an inadequate measure because it averages noise over a 24-hour period, thereby understating the impact of individual noise incidences. Thus, the congressional intent underpinning Sections 188 and 173 was to address the inadequacy of the DNL metric and nudge the FAA towards a more comprehensive measure. The report fails to understand that intent. Instead, we have received a delayed and highly insufficient report that does not address community impacts of noise.”
“Furthermore, there are glaring absences in the FAA’s assessment that render it incomplete. For example, the report fails to analyze complaint data despite the fact that the FAA itself utilized complaint data as a lawful alternative metric in its 2013 federal court case against Helicopter Association International, Inc.[4] Failing to mention any role for complaint data would appear in contrast to FAA’s Noise Complaint Initiative begun in the last 12 months, allowing direct reporting of noise events to FAA. The report also lacks the scientific nuance the agency demonstrated in 2019, when the FAA funded a research project at MIT to evaluate metrics and assess the impact of frequent overflights; that study concluded that the Number-Above (NA) metric provided an effective correlation to aircraft noise impacts on the public,[5] but is scarcely mentioned in this report. Even commonly used metrics are overlooked, such as the metrics for construction noise and the concept of sones. Construction noise metrics are regularly employed across the United States and capture greater noise nuance than the DNL standard. Sones represent the perception of loudness and help capture aviation noise annoyance. In our estimation, the FAA report merely stands by the agency’s existing DNL metric and enumerates existing methodology with no regard to the value of improved and updated alternatives.”
October 21, 2020
Letter From Senator Warren, Senator Markey, Congresswoman Clark, Congresswoman Pressley And Congressman Lynch Wanting To Know Why The FAA Rejected All Eight Noise Mitigation Solutions For Boston’s Logan Airport Despite Promising Solutions For The Past Four Years
December 31, 2020
Letter From Congressional Quiet Skies Caucus To President-elect Biden And Incoming Secretary Of Trasportation Pete Buttigieg About FAA NextGen And The Misery It Is Inflicting On Millions Of Americans.
March 10, 2021
Letter From Congressional Quiet Skis Caucus To FAA Administrator Steve Dickson Wanting To Know Why The FAA Took Six Years to Produce the NES Survey Results Showing That People Were Far More Bothered By Aircraft Noise Than The FAA Had Been Telling Congress.
April 5, 2021
Letter From Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) Wanting To Know Why The FAA Hasn’t Published Any Formal Guidance Under Section 190 Of the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act.
“The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 was signed into law over two years ago, yet the FAA has still not published any formal guidance for the program,” Smith said in the letter. “The bill contained numerous provisions requiring research to examine the impact of aviation noise and emissions, including a new environmental mitigation pilot program. According to the law, the program will fund projects that will ‘measurably reduce or mitigate aviation impacts on noise, air quality, or water quality.’
2. Legislation Introduced By Congress
Since 2013, Members of Congress have introduced multiple bills to address the problems created by NextGen. Note that the bills listed below do not represent the full extent of bills introduced concerning NextGen (there are many versions of various appropriation and reauthorization bills that touch on the problems created by NextGen).
116th Congress (2019-2020)
H.R. 5110
The APPRISE Act “All Participating in Process Reaching Informed Solutions For Everyone Act”
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5450
The Cleaner, Quieter Airplanes Act
Date Introduced: 12/17/19
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5112
Low Frequency Energetic Acoustics And Vibrations Exasperate Act
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5111
Notify Officials To Inform Fully And Impel Educated Decisions Act
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status : Introduced
H.R. 5109
Fairness In Airspace Includes Residents Act
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5108
Southbound HUSSH And NIITE Help Households Act
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5107
Serious Noise Reduction Efforts Act Of 2019
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5106
Restore Everyone’s Sleep Tonight Act Of 2019
Date Introduced: 11/14/19
Status: Introduced
S.2837
The Cleaner, Quieter Airplanes Act
Date Introduced: 11/12/2019
Status: Introduced
115th Congress (2017-2018)
S. 320
NextGen Accountability Act
Date Introduced: 02/16/17
Status: Introduced
S. 1405
FAA Reauthorization Act of 2017
Date Introduced: 06/22/17
Status: Introduced
H.R. 302
FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018
Date Introduced: 01/05/17
Status: Passed Into Law. This bill contained numerous provisions requiring the FAA to start addressing air and noise pollution problems created by NextGen, but appeared to give the FAA much room to stall and/or made vague recommendations.
H.R. 598
Airplane Impacts Mitigation Act of 2017 (AIM Act)
Date Introduced: 01/20/17
Status: Introduced
114th Congress (2015-2016)
H.R. 5744
NextGen Flight Path Review And Notification Act Of 2016
Date Introduced: 07/12/16
Status: Introduced
S. 3502
NextGen Accountability Act
Date Introduced: 12/5/16
Status: Introduced
H.R. 5075
Airplane Impacts Mitigation Act 2016
Date Introduced: 4/27/16
Status: Introduced
S. 2585
Airspace Management Advisory Committee Act of 2016
Date Introduced: 02/25/16
Status: Introduced
113th Congress (2013-2014)
H.Res. 29
Urges The FAA To Continue Its Cooperation With U.S. Airports That Are Seeking To Implement Noise Mitigation Plans
Date Introduced: 1/15/13
Status: Introduced
3. Reports Prepared By Federal Agencies Concerning FAA NextGen
“FAA Has Made Progress In Implementing Its Metroplex Program, But Benefits For Airspace Users Have Fallen Short Of Expectations” – U.S. Department Of Transportation, Office Of Inspector General , August 27, 2019
