Does the Federal Aviation Administration Comply with the Improper Payments and Elimination Recovery Act When Awarding Airport Improvement Grants?

This article explores the level of compliance that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employs regarding the 2010 Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA), in which Congress directed federal agencies to identify and eliminate federal fiscal waste and recover improper payments already made. Focusing primarily on the FAA’s airport improvement grants, the author discusses the use of the benefit cost ratio analysis (BCA) to determine eligibility for a proposed project; which costs and benefits should be considered in an airport project; how the FAA evaluates BCA-supported projects; the basic requirements of IPERA and airport improvement programs (AIP); runway safety area (RSA) conflicts in the FAA design standards; FAA-sanctioned indirect measures to control pilots; the FAA “larger aircraft safety argument;” airport runway extensions; and specific examples that speak to these issues, notably the county of San Diego (California) violations of grant assurances, fires in the Palomar Airport (California) landfill trash, and problems with possible airplane crashes into that landfill cover. The author contends that the federal government transportation grant process is fundamentally flawed, proposing that IPERA and the oversight agency regulations should require that grant applicants provide both favorable and unfavorable data in their applications. This approach models other disclosure requirements in public financing. One figure illustrates the McClellan-Palomar Airport Runway, depicting landfill methane gas extraction systems.

• Record URL:
  • https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/tportl45&div=10&id=&page=
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1767710
• Authors:
  • Bender, Raymond
• Publication Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 57-94
• Serial:
  • Transportation Law Journal
  • Volume: 45
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: University of Denver College of Law
  • ISSN: 0049-450X
  • Serial URL: https://www.law.du.edu/transportation-law-journal

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airport runways; Airports; Benefit cost analysis; Environmental impacts; Government funding; Grant aid; Legal factors
• Identifier Terms: Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA); McClellan-Palomar Airport (San Diego County, California); U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Economics; Finance; Law;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01725011
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 13 2019 9:29AM