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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Industry Cooperation Not Enough to Ensure Air Safety

Today, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing investigating recent regulatory lapses at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Christopher Conkey of The Wall Street Journal reports on the damning testimony of the Department of Transportation's inspector general:

Three days into an extraordinary bout of flight cancellations stemming from a special safety review of the nation's airlines, inspector general Calvin Scovell told a Senate subcommittee that the FAA continues to give airlines too much freedom on complying with safety regulations. He criticized the agency's reliance on industry-provided data to determine risk areas for its inspectors to examine, and said that airlines shouldn't be able to sidestep penalties or costly fixes by voluntarily disclosing safety missteps to regulators.

"We are concerned that FAA relies too heavily on self-disclosures and promotes a pattern of excessive leniency at the expense of effective oversight and appropriate enforcement," Mr. Scovell said in his testimony to the committee.

Scovell is right to condemn the reliance on industry-reporting, especially in area as critical as air safety. Relying on the cooperation of businesses, no matter how accommodating they may be, is no replacement for zealous government oversight.

A cursory review of government data shows that, as Americans take to the air more frequently, FAA employment is shrinking. In 1983, FAA employed one full-time staffer for every 107 departing flights. By 2006, FAA employed one full-time staffer for every 286 flights. (In his testimony, Scovell acknowledges that one of FAA's major challenges will be hiring in two critical areas: air traffic control and aircraft inspection.)

Granted, technological improvements have surely made FAA's job more effective and efficient. But the controversy surrounding FAA casts aside the notion that government is in the way. Instead, it underscores the idea that voluntary industry compliance is not an adequate substitute for strong public protections and a government that acts on behalf of its citizens.